00:00:00
here is an idea a get rich quick scheme no experience at all [Music] 71 a man using the name Dan Cooper
00:00:15
bought a 20 one-way ticket from Portland to Seattle he paid in cash he boarded the plane set towards the back and
00:00:24
ordered a bourbon and soda when the plane took off he handed the flight attendant a note she put it away
00:00:31
without looking at it she assumed he was trying to give her his number she was used to businessmen trying to
00:00:38
flirt with her but when the man saw that she didn't look at it he leaned over and when
00:00:44
you'd better look at that note I have a bomb the note told her to sit down beside him
00:00:51
and when she did the man opened his briefcase inside there were eight red cylinders
00:00:57
attached to wires the flight attendant took the man's demands to the pilot when the plane
00:01:04
landed he wanted two hundred thousand dollars and four parachutes once the plane landed the man let all of
00:01:12
the passengers disembark but he kept the crew on as hostages he demanded that they take off again
00:01:19
this time in the direction of Mexico City and 45 minutes into the flight the man strapped the cash to himself and
00:01:28
jumped off the plane [Music] search parties looked for the man in the cache for days but they couldn't find
00:01:36
either he had just disappeared it was all over the news although the hijacker pseudonym Dan Cooper was
00:01:45
misreported as D.B Cooper he's still never been found it's been 47 years 28 year old Martin McNally was driving
00:01:55
with a friend in Detroit when he heard about D.B Cooper on the radio at that particular time I laughed very loud and
00:02:03
I told my friend that uh that's not a bad way to make some money Martin thought how hard could it be if
00:02:13
DB Cooper could do it he could too I had no experience being on a planes I never
00:02:19
put on a parachute and I never owned a gun Martin was unemployed he'd worked a series of jobs after being discharged
00:02:28
from the Navy years earlier he tried a few small time scams once he got busted putting fake quarters
00:02:35
into a laundromat change machine nothing had really worked out so he threw himself into trying to
00:02:43
figure out how to hijack an airplane first he went to the local library he spent about five hours uh pulling out uh
00:02:52
books on parachuting and World War II Adventures uh in flying and so forth and it took about four hours
00:03:03
to come across the calculation that I wanted and it was an algebraic calculation to
00:03:10
determine terminal velocity and once I had that I wrote down the formula and left and
00:03:20
went home Martin did all of the calculations himself figuring out how high above the ground the plane should
00:03:27
be and how fast it should be going for him to safely jump out and open a parachute
00:03:33
he was most concerned with how long he would have after the jump before he needed to open the parachute he figured
00:03:40
he had about 15 to 20 seconds The Next Step was to find the right Airport for five months Martin scouted airports
00:03:49
across the Midwest he visited Indianapolis Chicago St Louis and Kansas City he finally chose St Louis's Lambert
00:03:59
Airport he thought it had the worst security he visited two more times to prepare
00:04:05
he bought a ticket with forged Navy discharge papers under the name Robert Wilson
00:04:12
and on the afternoon of June 23 1972 he walked into the airport went up to the counter gave the agent his ticket and
00:04:21
boarded the plane we didn't go through any metal detectors at this time if there had been metal detectors I
00:04:28
wouldn't have been on that plane period so I was able to get on the plane with a
00:04:33
gun oh yeah with my uh I had a sawed-off uh rifle it looked like a World War II grease gun and I had a pistol and I had
00:04:44
a smoke grenade and I was dressed uh like a businessman suit and tie and sport coat sunglasses
00:04:52
didn't have my wig on at that time sat down and we uh we took off Martin McNally was planning to jump out of a
00:05:02
plane ten thousand feet in the air going 500 miles an hour and had almost no idea
00:05:08
what he was doing I'm Phoebe judge this is Criminal [Music] more than 130 American planes were
00:05:22
hijacked between 1968 and 1972. sometimes there was more than one case of air piracy on the same day anyone
00:05:32
could have tried it anyone too good to try and quite frankly a lot of people were doing it doing it back then during
00:05:41
the 1960s it was most common for people to board planes and demand to be taken to Cuba people trying to leave the
00:05:49
United States to make a political statement but also criminals seeking Ransom payments
00:05:55
airline companies and the US government came up with some unusual Solutions pilots flying to any destination were
00:06:04
provided with charts outlining routes to Havana just in case hijackings to Cuba were so common that
00:06:11
in 1968 Time Magazine published an article advising passengers to just stay calm and enjoy the mojitos it included
00:06:20
tips for the best hotels and cigar shopping the federal government went so far as to
00:06:27
consider building a fake version of The Havana Airport in Florida so hijacked planes could land there instead
00:06:35
the Federal Aviation Administration formed an anti-highjacking task force and solicited ideas from the public
00:06:43
the public made suggestions like installing trap doors arming flight attendants with tranquilizer darts and
00:06:51
making everyone on the plane were boxing gloves so no one could hold a gun the obvious solution was to just screen
00:06:59
passengers with a metal detector but Airlines thought the inconvenience of walking through a metal detector
00:07:06
outweighed the inconvenience of being threatened at gunpoint ten thousand feet in the air
00:07:12
lines argued that increased security would be bad for business customers didn't want to wait in line or
00:07:19
feel like criminals on their way to vacation so on the afternoon of June 23 1972 when
00:07:27
Martin breezed onto his flight at the St Louis airport he didn't expect any trouble at all we took off and we're on
00:07:36
our way to uh Tulsa Oklahoma and about 15 minutes out of Tulsa the pilot came on the uh
00:07:44
intercom and he said we'll be landing in about 15 minutes so uh I sat there and I said this is it
00:07:53
I got to make a decision if if I land in Tulsa and don't pull this uh thing right now I'm going to be
00:08:00
stuck in Tulsa Oklahoma so I said you either pump up your gonads or forget about it so
00:08:08
I uh asked the guy uh where the restroom was in the plane and he said it's in the
00:08:15
back on the right hand side so I picked up my attit case very cautiously and headed to the bathroom went in the
00:08:23
bathroom closed the door lock the door and uh open the attitude case and pulled out
00:08:30
the uh pull out the wig and pulled out the gloves and then uh pulled out the uh the rifle
00:08:41
Martin says he kicked the safety back on the rifle so he wouldn't accidentally fire a bullet into the plane's fuselage
00:08:48
he put on what newspapers later described as a hippie type wig then he opened the bathroom door and
00:08:55
crouched down in the aisle at the back and I was waving waving to the stewardesses but nobody no stewardesses
00:09:03
could see me did see me for about three minutes finally a stewardess saw me and came back and she was a young lady and
00:09:15
she said don't hurt anybody and I said young lady I'm not here to hurt anybody I'm here to give the pilot a message and
00:09:25
I said take this note then up to the pilot and then come back here immediately so that's what she did what
00:09:34
did the note say did had you written it at home yes I typed it at home on a typewriter
00:09:41
and uh actually I had uh the original and the carbon copy and by mistake I gave the stewardess to the carbon copy
00:09:50
and the carbon copy didn't have the red uh bald uh type uh that was on the original so it's hard to read
00:09:59
yeah it was a little harder to read but uh the pilot we got the gist of it this is a skyjacking all I want is the money
00:10:08
here's the instructions that you need to do notify the FBI I want uh 502 thousand
00:10:15
dollars why the extra 2 000 why not just make an even because that spent that's spending money that would have been
00:10:22
pocket change Martin says his plan was to bury the half million dollar package wherever he happened to land after he
00:10:29
jumped out of the plane and used the extra two thousand dollars to get back home to Michigan pick up his car and
00:10:36
drive to Canada he would come back and dig up the half million once things had cooled down
00:10:42
but first he had to get the money the captain uh says uh tells the uh over the intercom
00:10:50
he said uh we have a passenger that wants to go back to St Louis so that's what we're
00:10:56
doing back then when a hijacker made a demand airline policy was total compliance
00:11:03
Martin demanded a new seat at the back of the airplane and a flight attendant asked a family to move to make room for
00:11:10
him there was a dude a tall dude his wife and he had two kids so the wife got up moved the daughter
00:11:20
got up to move and the son he was about 10 or 11 12 years old he got up into the
00:11:27
aisle and turned back and looked at me for a couple of seconds 10 or 15 seconds and just shook his head and then went
00:11:35
turned around and went up to the first class section and then the old man the the father of
00:11:40
the family uh he got up and stood in the aisle and he was about uh four or five feet in
00:11:47
front of me he turned around and he was looking at me and I was looking at him I was staring
00:11:53
at him I didn't blink and I was thinking that uh what this guy wants to do here is charge me he wants me to be blinking
00:12:01
and uh kick the gun and uh uh subdue me Martin says he pointed his gun at the man and they stood there staring at each
00:12:09
other until the man finally turned and followed his family up to First Class the pilot landed back in St Louis
00:12:18
as soon as they landed Martin says he ordered the women and children off the plane he didn't want anyone on the
00:12:25
tarmac to get too close so they used the inflatable slide and then uh when that wasn't enough to get off and then there
00:12:32
were still a lot of people on the plane I told the stewardess to tell the pilot that anybody with heart problems taking
00:12:39
medication or old uh they can get off the plane too so what the pilot did he got an inner comedy and relay that
00:12:47
message and uh unbelievably everybody on their plane stood up and they were going to
00:12:55
leave a 100 of them okay they all had heart problems apparently he needed to think
00:13:01
in the end he did decide to let almost everyone off the plane but he kept 15 healthy men along with
00:13:09
the crew as hostages uh once we've got all that done they said what next and I said well we need to get this plane in
00:13:16
the air and uh tell the pilot to refuel and take us up in the air the plane circled above St Louis for almost five
00:13:25
hours while Banks and Airlines scrambled to get together the five hundred thousand dollars
00:13:30
how are these passenger hostages doing I mean you were in the air with them for many hours were they in what was the
00:13:39
mood um I think that they were in good mood I think the moods were good I mean they
00:13:45
they had no reasons to be apprehensive about uh any serious problems I think but uh yeah the the uh passengers were
00:13:54
okay at any point though when you were sitting there on the plane were you feeling guilty were you looking at them
00:14:01
and kind of wanting to say listen I'm sorry about this I'm not actually trying to hurt you
00:14:07
no no not at all of course I'm not trying to hurt him I'm not trying to hurt anybody myself included
00:14:15
that uh I didn't feel no I didn't feel guilty at all just after 9 pm the plane made its
00:14:22
second landing at the St Louis Airport the money was delivered in a leather mail bag and a small paper bag Martin
00:14:30
gave the flight attendants two thousand dollars he called it a tip because they'd quote been so nice through this
00:14:37
thing they had a few other demands two shovels flight goggles five parachutes two
00:14:43
harnesses and an altimeter around midnight Martin released all of the passengers except for one hostage
00:14:51
the plane was refueled for another takeoff everything was on schedule and we are ready to take off
00:15:01
um the pilot uh starts the gun the engine we're rolling rolling for takeoff he starts to gun the
00:15:09
engine and then he uh stops puts the brakes on and he says Uh there's there's something
00:15:18
on the runway and he said oh my God there's uh it's gonna hit us a businessman named David Hanley had
00:15:28
been watching the news of Martin's hijacking he was sitting at the bar of the airport
00:15:32
Marriott watching the minute by minute updates about the hijacking on local TV he told everyone at the bar to keep
00:15:41
their eyes on the screen got into his brand new Cadillac Eldorado and drove to the airport
00:15:47
he then drove through the chain-link fence around the runway and started driving towards the plane at 80 miles an
00:15:54
hour 80 miles an hour think of what's going to happen nose gear is going to collapse
00:15:59
and the plane the cockpit and everything else is going to hit the concrete and the tarmac a fully loaded plane you can
00:16:08
talk about a major explosion there and I'm dead everybody's dead at that point but what the pilot did he slammed on the
00:16:15
brakes and the plane bounced uh twice I moved up twice in my seat I think at that
00:16:24
point there oh everything came to a stop and uh I realized that we were really hit by some
00:16:34
some damn fool we're gonna have to order another plane [Music] after David Hanley smashed his Cadillac
00:16:55
into Martin McNally's plane at 80 miles an hour Martin didn't give up he just asked for a new plane
00:17:02
this new plane would need to be fully fueled and parked as close as possible they would all have to move from the
00:17:09
damaged plane to this new one without anybody making a run for it and without anybody getting the chance to aim a gun
00:17:16
at Martin very nervous I was very nervous I would say I was even scared that that's a vulnerable position
00:17:26
and I told the pilot to tell the FBI on the ground that I know they got Sharpshooters that are going to try to
00:17:34
pick me off and I know they have cameras are trying to get photos and if I see any uh
00:17:43
any lights uh uh any lights or any beams uh this thing could come to a screeching
00:17:50
halt very quick with an explosion I said I don't want to see any uh Hanky Panky when we make the move from
00:18:00
plane to plane it took an hour and a half for it to arrive when it did Martin changed planes using
00:18:07
two flight attendants for cover and holding his briefcase over his head it was almost 2 30 in the morning when
00:18:14
they took off in the new plane towards Toronto he had hoped to take off from St Louis by midnight and jump out of the
00:18:21
plane by 1am but they were now hours behind schedule which posed a problem because he knew he
00:18:29
needed to jump before the sun came up and uh so that's what that's what happened I
00:18:35
made a decision I had to bail out then that's what I did but you would never you would never used
00:18:41
a parachute before never in my life had I put on a parachute did you have anyone
00:18:48
who helped you on the plane I mean how did you even know how to put this thing on
00:18:53
I tried to uh do it myself get this harness and situated and as I'm doing this the four
00:19:03
stewardess is uh are standing around me and I told one of them I need to uh clip
00:19:10
these uh leg straps I need to get these leg straps put on properly and at one point she says
00:19:19
I don't think we're supposed to be doing this I said young lady believe me uh trust me
00:19:26
you're supposed to be doing everything I tell you to do now let's get this harness taken care of
00:19:33
so that's what happened I mean I'd be happy to happy to get you off that plane I'd be just ready to throw you out the
00:19:40
door yeah yeah I guess you would [Music] he used twine to tie the 45 pound mail bag full of money to his leg he also
00:19:52
threaded his belt through the loop of the bag to make it more secure and then he was ready to jump
00:20:00
I was very worried I was very worried and uh uh when I was on the plane just getting ready to uh bail out uh I had
00:20:10
second thoughts and I said uh yeah this is uh this is precarious uh uh I uh I have some options here I can go up to
00:20:21
the uh cockpit and give him the gun and tell them this is a joke or I can uh kill myself or I can take a chance on uh
00:20:30
bailing out I decided Well uh I I better bail out and if I make it fine if I don't uh it death comes quick
00:20:41
he jumped he could only see the clouds below him the goggles were ripped off of his head he counted to 20 and pulled the
00:20:51
rip cord and when he did the jolt of the parachute opening was so hard the buckles on the Belt holding the money
00:20:58
back snapped the twine wasn't enough to hold the bag alone and the bag went flying the money
00:21:05
was gone and uh I said I'm gonna do this again in two weeks and uh I landed Underground
00:21:16
[Music] in my head slammed against the uh dirt and I jumped up and I could see stars
00:21:32
and I heard a lot of dogs barking a lot of dogs barking I mean the dogs must have known something was up
00:21:41
but uh I started walking towards the trees because I knew I couldn't get a car uh with my head uh being smashed up like
00:21:52
it was it was pitch dark 100 I laid down the parachute and crawled into the parachute
00:22:00
and went to sleep I think it was about five o'clock P.M that I actually uh uh got up and brushed
00:22:09
off my uh clothes and my shoes shined my shoes a little bit put the parachute under the tree and over some leaves
00:22:19
and headed out to a road Martin had no idea where he was but he assumed the FBI was already looking for
00:22:27
him he decided to hitchhike into town finally a car stopped for him the chief of police that he was something he was
00:22:36
with his wife and this is about 10 o'clock he stopped he said where are you going
00:22:43
I said I'm going to Detroit so he he got out of his car and he came up to me uh and he said could I see some
00:22:53
identification I said sure so I pulled out on my wallet I pulled out uh a driver's license
00:23:01
and he said do you have uh other identification I said sure so I showed him some credit cards
00:23:10
the guy says uh would you like to a ride into town and I said well yeah I certainly would thank you before I get
00:23:18
in his car I I pulled out my pistol and I tossed it about 20 feet he didn't see it and his wife didn't see me do that
00:23:26
and then I got in the car and uh you said it's not it's not safe to be on the streets uh tonight there's
00:23:34
a lot of excitement I said yeah I know I've heard about the the search that's going on here for that
00:23:41
uh Skyjacker so he said yeah there's a lot of FBI around here I said I can imagine
00:23:48
[Music] they drove a couple of miles into town where the police chief dropped Martin
00:23:57
off and my my inclination was to grab a car outway or a car and get out of the area but then
00:24:07
on reflection I said no I can't do that if a car comes up missing here reported stolen
00:24:15
that the chief of police has my name and he could connect two and two so I said I can't do that
00:24:23
uh I decided I couldn't hitchhike either it's too hot so I walked around and I noticed a bar
00:24:31
at the end of the road and at the street there and I walked into the barn uh and got up and sat down ordered a
00:24:42
drink you're about 10 or 15 people in this bar they were and they were looking at me
00:24:48
yeah they were looking at me and I wondered about that so I went into the bathroom and I looked
00:24:55
in the mirror and I looked a mess I looked a mess both eyes were Brown and my chin was uh looked like it had been
00:25:05
ripped and a little bloody and my hair was a mess so uh yeah I was like I was messed up
00:25:13
there he put water on his hair and combed it and tried to clean off some of the blood
00:25:20
he then went back into the bar and ordered a hamburger and a beer around midnight he went to a hotel
00:25:27
the hotel clerk was listening to radio reports about The hijacker she joked you're not the hijacker are you Martin
00:25:34
just smiled and went up to his room I was looking out the window looking nothing down the street
00:25:42
there were a lot of cars on the street and there was two men walking walking down the street and they weren't in
00:25:49
suits and they were looking in the windows and yeah I figured they were the FBI I understand they had about 200 FBI
00:26:01
agents uh searching plus local police and so forth the money was soon found in a field by a
00:26:10
soybean farmer a couple of hours later another farmer ran over the gun with his tractor
00:26:17
the search for Martin was intensifying he had a friend come pick him up and drive him back to Michigan
00:26:24
he didn't think anybody knew who he was so he just went home and immediately he started making plans
00:26:32
to do it all again without losing the money this time he bragged to a friend about it but
00:26:39
Martin didn't know that the FBI was already watching his house so you do end up getting arrested
00:26:48
yes yes I do almost six days after Martin hijacked the plane a dozen FBI agents surrounded
00:26:57
him as he was walking home one night they'd found his fingerprints on the plane and on the note that he'd handed
00:27:05
to the flight attendant they'd also searched his house and found ammunition and parts of a gun
00:27:12
he was charged with two counts of federal aircraft piracy part of his lawyer's defense was that
00:27:19
the jump Martin made was impossible there was no way anyone could have survived it
00:27:24
it didn't work Martin was given two life sentences and in 1973 less than a year later
00:27:33
airports started installing metal detectors I wonder if you ever thought when you
00:27:39
were in the courtroom hearing the two natural life sentences and thinking to yourself
00:27:45
I didn't even get the money yeah of course I said that I got two life sentences and
00:27:54
it cost me about two or three thousand dollars to put the put the uh everything together this thing took about five
00:28:01
months I did a lot of driving around and uh spending a lot of time looking at airports and uh
00:28:09
seeing the sights and getting all the equipment together the gun and uh uh yeah yeah I
00:28:19
thought that uh I got the life and I cost me two grand yeah you feel bad about it yeah
00:28:31
oh God do I feel bad about it oh I I really don't know what to say I don't feel bad about anything I I I I I I
00:28:42
don't feel bad about anything should I feel bad [Music] Martin was sent to Leavenworth federal
00:28:54
penitentiary in Kansas where one day a fellow hijacker knocked on his door knocks on my door
00:29:03
uh he said uh can I come in I said yes come on in I said what's up he said how would you like to leave this this place
00:29:12
in a helicopter and I said well uh I pause well uh uh I don't know we're gonna have to
00:29:20
discuss this we'll have to discuss the details before I make a decision on something like that but yeah let's let's
00:29:28
look into this we'll have that part of the story in our next episode [Music] criminal is produced by Lauren Spore
00:29:45
nydia Wilson and me audio mix by Rob Byers special thanks to Stephanie Cohen and Danny withintowski Julian Alexander
00:29:54
makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal you can see them at thisiscriminal.com where on Facebook and
00:30:02
Twitter at criminal show Criminal is recorded in the studios of North Carolina public radio wunc we're a proud
00:30:10
member of radiotopia from PRX a collection of the best shows around shows like 99 invisible they have a new
00:30:18
series all about what we wear articles of interest is produced by long time 99 invisible producer Avery truffleman who
00:30:29
digs into how the design of clothing affects us every day [Music] introducing a new six-part series from
00:30:40
99 invisible it's called articles of interest and it's a show about what we wear and so maybe the ideas about
00:30:47
clothing you can attach all right deal is about class an idea of Hope to a piece of cloth
00:30:53
[Music] s we can wear clothes but if you ain't got the attitude and style to carried off
00:31:03
man you're just a closed course look for it in your 99 invisible podcast feed [Music]
00:31:11
learn more at articles of Interest dot Club I'm Phoebe judge this is Criminal [Music]
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