Speaker 1: On the afternoon of November twenty fourth, nineteen seventy one,
Speaker 1: Portland International Airport was a hive of frantic activity. It
Speaker 1: was the day before Thanksgiving, one of the busiest travel
Speaker 1: days of the year in the US. Departures swarmed with
Speaker 1: people traveling to see their families for the holiday. Amid
Speaker 1: that chaos, stood in line at the ticket desk was
Speaker 1: a tall man in a dark suit and raincoat, wearing
Speaker 1: sunglasses and carrying a briefcase. When he finally got to
Speaker 1: the front of the line, the man asked for a
Speaker 1: one way ticket to Seattle. The man was in luck
Speaker 1: there was a seat on board a flight going that
Speaker 1: very afternoon. The man handed over the twenty dollars for
Speaker 1: the ticket, then breezily strolled from the desk to his
Speaker 1: departure gate. Later, on board Northwest orient Airlines flight three
Speaker 1: O five to Seattle, the man squeezed through to the
Speaker 1: back of the Boeing seven two seven. He settled into
Speaker 1: an aisle seat in row eighteen, placed his briefcase on
Speaker 1: the seat beside him, and lit a cigarette. At four
Speaker 1: thirty five p m. The plane took off from the
Speaker 1: rumway and eased up into the steadily darkening sky. When
Speaker 1: the plane leveled out, twenty three year old flight attendant
Speaker 1: Florence Shaffner began making her way down the aisle with
Speaker 1: the drink's cart. She'd clocked the man at the back
Speaker 1: early on, thinking it a little odd that he hadn't
Speaker 1: removed his sunglasses. When she finally got down to him,
Speaker 1: he asked politely for a bourbon and soda. Despite her
Speaker 1: young age, Florence was an experienced flight attendant. She'd been
Speaker 1: doing the job long enough that not much phazed her,
Speaker 1: especially when it came to attention from male passengers. Sex
Speaker 1: appeal was, after all, part of the job description for stewardesses,
Speaker 1: as they used to be known. In addition to staying young, slim,
Speaker 1: and single, attendants were expected to appear available and interest
Speaker 1: it to flatter the egos of male passengers who made
Speaker 1: passes at them. For Florence, it was by and large
Speaker 1: one of the worst parts of the job, so when
Speaker 1: soon after serving him the drink, the smartly dressed man
Speaker 1: handed her a note, it was all she could do
Speaker 1: to not roll her eyes in front of him. What
Speaker 1: would it be this time? She thought a phone number,
Speaker 1: a marriage proposal, perhaps, Florence forced a smile and took
Speaker 1: the note, but made sure not to open it, better
Speaker 1: not to put them both in the awkward position of
Speaker 1: her having to respond to it there and then. But
Speaker 1: when she turned to walk away, the man spoke, miss
Speaker 1: He said, with an unnervingly insistent tone, you'd better take
Speaker 1: a look at that note. Florence paused for a moment,
Speaker 1: then grudgingly opened it. The words were written in neat,
Speaker 1: elegant capitals, and yet they seemed to be swimming in
Speaker 1: front of her eyes. Her mind couldn't quite process them.
Speaker 1: I have a bomb in my briefcase, they read. I
Speaker 1: would use it if necessary. I want you to sit
Speaker 1: next to me. You are being hijacked. You're listening to unexplained,
Speaker 1: and I'm Richard McLean Smith. Florence felt unsteady on her feet.
Speaker 1: The world around her seemed hazy and far away, and
Speaker 1: so did the figure of the man in front of her.
Speaker 1: She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, hoping that
Speaker 1: when she opened them she'd find herself safe at home
Speaker 1: in bed. She'd had nightmares before about being confronted by
Speaker 1: a hijacker, and not unreasonably, America was in the midst
Speaker 1: of a period now referred to as the Golden Age
Speaker 1: of hijacking, and cases had been rising steadily over the
Speaker 1: past three years, but she never really believed it would
Speaker 1: happen to her. When Florence opened her eyes again, the
Speaker 1: man was still there, looking expectantly at her, with one
Speaker 1: hand on his briefcase, his eyes inscrutable behind the sunglasses.
Speaker 1: I want you to sit next to me, he said,
Speaker 1: echoing the words in his note. Though every instinct was
Speaker 1: telling he her to run and scream, Florence forced her
Speaker 1: legs to move and eased herself into the seat beside him.
Speaker 1: Once she was sat down, she couldn't take her eyes
Speaker 1: off the briefcase. Almost without thinking, she found herself asking
Speaker 1: the man if she could see the bomb. The man
Speaker 1: opened the briefcase and turned it to show her the inside.
Speaker 1: Florence felt a surge of adrenaline when she caught sight
Speaker 1: of the tangled mass of wires and cylinders, all connected
Speaker 1: to a large central battery. Time seemed to slow down.
Speaker 1: She imagined the bomb detonating, flames, consuming the entire plane
Speaker 1: in seconds, its charred scraps falling to earth. She thought
Speaker 1: of her parents in Arkansas, hearing about it all on
Speaker 1: the evening news, and for the first time in her life,
Speaker 1: she thought about dying. Just then, another flight attendant, twenty
Speaker 1: two year old Tina Mucklow, came heading toward them down
Speaker 1: the aisle. Florence could only imagine what she thought at
Speaker 1: the sight of her sitting down with a passenger like this.
Speaker 1: It was almost a relief when Tina finally reached them
Speaker 1: and Florence was able to hand her the note. As
Speaker 1: Tina read it, Florence could visibly see the blood drain
Speaker 1: from her face. Then the man showed her the bomb too,
Speaker 1: taking care to point out just how it worked and
Speaker 1: where the detonator switch was. He spoke calmly and politely,
Speaker 1: keeping his voice low. The flight wasn't full, and they
Speaker 1: were at the back of the plane. No one else
Speaker 1: on board had any idea what was going on. The
Speaker 1: man then told Tina to inform the pilots that the
Speaker 1: plane was being hijacked and to deliver a precise set
Speaker 1: of instructions after detailing them. Tina nodded silently in response.
Speaker 1: She was just about to head off when the man
Speaker 1: added one more thing, Oh, he said, and no funny
Speaker 1: business or I'll do the job. Tina picked up the
Speaker 1: intercom and called the cockpit on an emergency signal. She
Speaker 1: told the pilots that the plane was being hijacked, then
Speaker 1: relayed the man's instructions. They were a little strange under
Speaker 1: the circumstances. Instead of re routing the plane to Cuba,
Speaker 1: as many politically motivated hijackers did at the time, the
Speaker 1: man wanted them to stick to their predetermined flight path,
Speaker 1: but when they reached Seattle, he wanted three things waiting
Speaker 1: for him on the ground. A fuel truck ready to
Speaker 1: refuel the plane, four parachutes, and two hundred thousand US
Speaker 1: dollars in cash, roughly one and a half million into
Speaker 1: day's money. So long as his demands were met, he
Speaker 1: said he would let all of the passengers go. Pilot
Speaker 1: Captain Scott radioed air traffic control on the ground in
Speaker 1: Washington and explained what was going on. He requested the
Speaker 1: plane be put in a holding pattern to give the
Speaker 1: authorities time to respond. Scott was directed to fly in
Speaker 1: circles over Puget Sound, a vast estuary which connects Sattle
Speaker 1: to the Pacific Ocean. Tina knew there was only one
Speaker 1: reason why they would do this, ground control wanted them
Speaker 1: over water in case the plane exploded. Meanwhile, back in
Speaker 1: row eighteen, the man in the suit and sunglasses ordered
Speaker 1: another drink from Florence. He seemed in good spirits, paying
Speaker 1: for his two dollar bourbon and soda with a twenty
Speaker 1: dollar bill and insisting that Florence keep the change almost
Speaker 1: one hundred and thirty dollars by today's standards. Not that
Speaker 1: Florence took any heed of that. She was too busy
Speaker 1: watching the man's every move as he leant back into
Speaker 1: his seat, one hand holding his drink, the other resting
Speaker 1: on his rigged briefcase. With little else to do, she
Speaker 1: and Tina focused on damage control. They had no way
Speaker 1: of knowing how destructive the man's bomb would be, so
Speaker 1: they resolved to try and put as much space between
Speaker 1: it and the passengers as possible to avoid causing alarm.
Speaker 1: They told passengers that there was a minor mechanical fault
Speaker 1: with the plane and asked everybody to move forwards into
Speaker 1: first class. But as the passengers began moving moving around
Speaker 1: the cabin, the man in the sunglasses became agitated. He
Speaker 1: demanded to know what was happening, What was taking so
Speaker 1: long and why the plane was in a holding pattern.
Speaker 1: The twenty two year old Tina did her best to
Speaker 1: keep him calm as she explained it was going to
Speaker 1: take time for the ground staff to have everything he
Speaker 1: wanted ready before they landed. If anything, they were just
Speaker 1: doing what he'd asked. In the meantime, she'd give him
Speaker 1: any information he wanted to know when she had it. Thankfully,
Speaker 1: it seemed to work. Sadly for Tina, it worked too well.
Speaker 1: The man demanded she stay by his side for the
Speaker 1: rest of the flight. To keep him company. Over the
Speaker 1: next hour or so, Tina told him about her childhood
Speaker 1: in rural Pennsylvania and about her current hometown of Minneapolis.
Speaker 1: In Minnesota. Seemed genuinely interested, but when she asked him
Speaker 1: the same question in return, he clammed up and refused
Speaker 1: to answer. She asked him why he'd picked Northwest Orient
Speaker 1: Airlines as his target. Did he have a grudge against them,
Speaker 1: she wondered. The man seemed amused by this. I don't
Speaker 1: have a grudge against your airline, he said, I just
Speaker 1: have a grudge. One upside to the golden age of
Speaker 1: hijacking was that most major airports had a solid plan
Speaker 1: in place for when it happened. As soon as Captain
Speaker 1: Scott alerted air traffic control to what was going on,
Speaker 1: a vast chain of people on the ground sprung into action.
Speaker 1: Local police and the FBI were informed within moments, and
Speaker 1: an urgent call was placed to Donald Nyroup, the president
Speaker 1: of Northwest Orrient Airlines. Without hesitating, Nyrop authorized payment of
Speaker 1: the ransom. Two hundred thousand dollars was a lot of money,
Speaker 1: but it was nothing compared to the consequences of that
Speaker 1: bomb being detonated. Loss of life aside, the value of
Speaker 1: the company was unlikely to ever recover should anything like
Speaker 1: that occur on board. Further to the request of the money,
Speaker 1: the hijacker had some very specific demands. He wanted ten
Speaker 1: thousand unmarked twenty dollar bills with non sequential serial numbers.
Speaker 1: This way, it would be harder to trace the money
Speaker 1: when he spent it unknown to him. However, when the
Speaker 1: money was duly delivered from a local branch of Seattle
Speaker 1: First National Bank, the FBI took microfilm photographs of the
Speaker 1: bills so that they'd have a record of each serial number. Surprisingly,
Speaker 1: getting hold of the four parachutes on such short notice,
Speaker 1: was more of a problem than the cash. An Air
Speaker 1: Force base close to the airport offered to provide them,
Speaker 1: but the man was adamant that they be civilian parachutes
Speaker 1: and not military wants. By then, it was after five
Speaker 1: pm on Thanksgiving Eve and all local businesses selling outdoor
Speaker 1: gear were closed for the holiday, but Seattle police eventually
Speaker 1: got through to the owner of a local skydiving school,
Speaker 1: who was able to deliver what they needed. While scrambling
Speaker 1: to comply with the man's demands, the authorities were also
Speaker 1: trying to work out its game plan. Based on the
Speaker 1: fact that he'd asked for four parachutes, they assumed that
Speaker 1: likely be a potential hostage situation. Finally, with everything figured
Speaker 1: out on the ground, air traffic control told Captain Scott
Speaker 1: that he was cleared to land. He relayed this message
Speaker 1: to Tina, who relaid it to the enigmatic man in
Speaker 1: the suit and sunglasses. Having circled the city for around
Speaker 1: two hours, Flight three oh five finally landed at Seattle
Speaker 1: Tacoma Airport and taxied to a remote and well lit
Speaker 1: area of the tarmac. Per the hijacker's instructions, no vehicles
Speaker 1: or personnel were allowed to come anywhere near the aircraft.
Speaker 1: As she felt the wheels touched the ground, Tina allowed
Speaker 1: herself a brief moment of relief. For the past hour,
Speaker 1: she had been doing her best to stay focused on
Speaker 1: the task at hand and not think about her own survival.
Speaker 1: But her task was far from over. She'd done such
Speaker 1: a good job of keeping the hijacker calm that now
Speaker 1: she was the only person on board who he trusted,
Speaker 1: and he had plans for her. Tina felt the rush
Speaker 1: of the cool evening air on her face as the
Speaker 1: aircraft door opened and filled her with a sudden, overwhelming
Speaker 1: urge to run. But Tina was not going to be
Speaker 1: leaving any time soon. So far, the hijacker had only
Speaker 1: agreed to release the passengers, and he was now sitting
Speaker 1: with his finger on the trigger mechanism of the bomb.
Speaker 1: Should anyone get any funny ideas. Slowly, Tina descended the
Speaker 1: stairs toward the tarmac, where a lone figure in a
Speaker 1: high vized vest was waiting for her. Al Lee, the
Speaker 1: airline's Seattle based operations manager, had been tasked with delivering
Speaker 1: the cash and the parachutes. Are you okay? He asked,
Speaker 1: looking at Tina with concern. She nodded quickly, forcing back
Speaker 1: tears as she took the supplies. Then she turned around
Speaker 1: and walked back towards the plane. The bag of money
Speaker 1: alone weighed around twenty pounds, and it was a struggle
Speaker 1: to wrestle it and the four parachutes up the stairs.
Speaker 1: But once she'd managed it and the hijacker had confirmed
Speaker 1: the supplies were correct, he gave the nod to release
Speaker 1: the passengers. True to his word, I allowed Or thirty
Speaker 1: six to get off the plane along with Florence, but
Speaker 1: not Tina, and not the three pilots in the cockpit
Speaker 1: for them. The ordeal was only just beginning. It shouldn't
Speaker 1: take this long, muttered the man in the suit as
Speaker 1: he waited for the plane to be filled up with fuel,
Speaker 1: his eyes darting suspiciously around the tarmac. Then finally, the
Speaker 1: refueling was complete and Tina began the process of retracting
Speaker 1: the stairs, but the man suddenly stopped her. He wanted
Speaker 1: the stairs to stay down. Tina didn't understand. The plane
Speaker 1: couldn't take off with the stairs deployed. The hijacker's requests
Speaker 1: seemed to be getting stranger. It scared her. Eventually, the
Speaker 1: man agreed to a compromise. The stairs could be retracted
Speaker 1: while the plane took off, so long as they could
Speaker 1: be lowered again once they were airborne. To make this possible, however,
Speaker 1: meant the rear door of the plane had to be
Speaker 1: kept open throughout the flight, and so with the back
Speaker 1: door wide open, the plane took off back into the night.
Speaker 1: It was an eerie sensation to feel the wind whipping
Speaker 1: past as they gathered speed, and the sound of the
Speaker 1: plane's engines through the open door was deafening. Hunched in
Speaker 1: the very back of the darkened cabin, Tina had never
Speaker 1: felt more alone or afraid. She had no idea where
Speaker 1: they were going or what the man had planned for
Speaker 1: her next. She couldn't take her eyes off the four
Speaker 1: parachutes now stacked up next to him. Right then, she
Speaker 1: had no idea if she'd make it back to solid
Speaker 1: ground alive. Once they were back in the air, the
Speaker 1: hijacker told the pilots to chart a southward path to
Speaker 1: Mexico City. As Ever, his instructions were specific. They were
Speaker 1: to keep the plane at an altitude of below ten
Speaker 1: thousand feet and fly at a steady speed of just
Speaker 1: under two hundred knots. They did as they were told. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: two fighter jets were stealthily following the plane, tracking its
Speaker 1: every move from a safe distance over the roaring of
Speaker 1: the engine. Tina tried to talk to the hijacker again
Speaker 1: and asked him what his plan was. She just couldn't
Speaker 1: take her mind off those damn parachutes. Clearly he intended
Speaker 1: to jump from the plane, but why did he need
Speaker 1: four parachutes? But the man seemed not to hear her,
Speaker 1: or perhaps he heard perfectly. Either way, he said nothing. Instead,
Speaker 1: he spent the next twenty minutes chainsmoking cigarettes, with Tina
Speaker 1: having to light each one for him because he still
Speaker 1: had a finger pressed against the trigger of the bomb.
Speaker 1: After stubbing out his final cigarette, the man got to
Speaker 1: his feet and told Tina to escort him to the
Speaker 1: back door and help him lower the stairs. Tina turned
Speaker 1: to look at the rear door and froze. The sight
Speaker 1: of it filled her with a primal terror. It was
Speaker 1: like looking into a void. Annoyed by her hesitation, the
Speaker 1: man repeated the request. Eventually, Tina forced herself to respond
Speaker 1: she would help him do it, but only if she
Speaker 1: could go to the cockpit and get some rope to
Speaker 1: tie herself to a seat while she did it. The
Speaker 1: hijacker refused, clearly still suspicious that she and the flight
Speaker 1: crew were plotting something. But Tina wouldn't budge fine, said
Speaker 1: the man. He would do it himself. After getting Tina
Speaker 1: to tell him what he needed to do, he directed
Speaker 1: her to go to the cockpit, closed the door behind her,
Speaker 1: and not come back no matter what happened. She glanced
Speaker 1: down at the briefcase with its ominous tangle of wires
Speaker 1: and batteries. The idea of it sitting back here unattended
Speaker 1: was terrifying. She begged him, will you please take the
Speaker 1: bomb with you? The man reassured her that he'd either
Speaker 1: take it with him or disarm it before he jumped,
Speaker 1: and she had no choice but to believe him. As
Speaker 1: Tina walked away up the aisle, she turned back for
Speaker 1: a moment and caught one final glimpse of the hijacker
Speaker 1: tying the twenty pound bag of money around his waist,
Speaker 1: and then she turned back and made a dash for
Speaker 1: the cockpit. Around eight p m. A warning light blinked
Speaker 1: on in the cockpit, indicating that the rear stairs had
Speaker 1: been deployed. About ten minutes later, the tail of the
Speaker 1: plane suddenly pitched upwards, forcing the pilots to take corrective action.
Speaker 1: To Tina and the pilots, it seemed like the hijacker
Speaker 1: must have jumped, but there was no way to be sure,
Speaker 1: and none of them wanted to take the risk of
Speaker 1: leaving the cockpit in case he was still on board.
Speaker 1: Shortly before eleven PM, the plane reached the airspace above Reno, Nevada,
Speaker 1: where it was due to refuel. Tina tried to reach
Speaker 1: the suited man through the cabin intercom, telling him they
Speaker 1: were about to land and he needed to raise the stairs,
Speaker 1: but there was no reply. She tried again and again
Speaker 1: as they descended, but the stairs remained Against the odds.
Speaker 1: Flight three oh five touched down safely in Reno with
Speaker 1: the stairs still deployed. When Tina and the pilots finally
Speaker 1: emerged from the cockpit, they found the cabin completely empty.
Speaker 1: The hijacker was gone, and so too was the bomb,
Speaker 1: the two hundred thousand dollars and two out of the
Speaker 1: four parachutes. After the shell shot flight crew were finally
Speaker 1: able to leave, an FBI team descended on the plane
Speaker 1: sweeping it from end to end. The man in the
Speaker 1: sunglasses had been careful to cover his tracks. He'd taken
Speaker 1: great effort not to leave any evidence behind, including even
Speaker 1: the note he'd initially written to Florence. The only traces
Speaker 1: remaining of him were a pile of cigarette butts and
Speaker 1: a black clip on tie he probably forgot to take
Speaker 1: with him. Even though two jets had been following the
Speaker 1: flight closely, nobody saw the man jump. Over the days
Speaker 1: to come, the authorities attempted to piece together what his
Speaker 1: final moments on board must have looked like. After sending
Speaker 1: Tina to the cockpit and tying the bag of cash
Speaker 1: around his waist, the man is thought to have strapped
Speaker 1: one parachute to his front and another to his back,
Speaker 1: perhaps fearing the possibility that one might not open. Then,
Speaker 1: after picking up his deadly briefcase, he lowered the stairs
Speaker 1: beneath him. All he would have seen was a thick
Speaker 1: layer of cloud blanketed by a total darkness. Taking the
Speaker 1: windchill into account, it would have been at least forty
Speaker 1: degrees below zero. Then, probably somewhere over the Cascade Mountains.
Speaker 1: He jumped, and the authorities had nothing except one thing,
Speaker 1: the name the man had given at the airport when
Speaker 1: he brought his ticket to Seattle. Dan Cooper, you'd been
Speaker 1: listening to Unexplained Season seven, episode twenty two, Jumping into
Speaker 1: Legend Part one. The second and final part will be
Speaker 1: released next Friday, May twenty fourth. This episode was written
Speaker 1: by Emma Dibton and produced by Richard mc lean smith.
Speaker 1: Unexplained is an Avy Club Productions podcast created by Richard
Speaker 1: mc clan smith. All other elements of the podcast, including
Speaker 1: the music, are also produced by me Richard mc lean smith. Unexplained.
Speaker 1: The book and audiobook, with stories never before featured on
Speaker 1: the show, is now available to buy world wide. You
Speaker 1: can purchase from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones and other bookstores.
Speaker 1: Please subscribe to and rate the show wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts, and feel free to get in touch with
Speaker 1: any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've heard on
Speaker 1: the show. Perhaps you have an explanation of your own
Speaker 1: you'd like to share. You can find out more at
Speaker 1: Unexplained podcast dot com and reaches on line through Twitter
Speaker 1: at Unexplained Pod and Facebook at Facebook dot com. Forward
Speaker 1: Slash Unexplained.
Speaker 2: Podcast Dinner A.
Speaker 3: B B B bases the Delain, then Dinna Dislong b.
Speaker 2: B, the.
Speaker 1: Di Din.
Speaker 3: Din Dict
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