Thorium and Air India Flight 101

Based on facts

 

Prologue

An interesting read - all episodes can be read individually or continuously.

All events described in this document are facts and can be studied in detail in wikipedia or other Internet sources.

 

 

Episode: Thorium

 

 

Thorium
Thorium is a naturally occurring radioactive chemical element with the symbol Th and atomic number 90. It was discovered in 1828 and named after Thor, the Norse god of thunder.

 

Thorium is estimated to be about three to four times more abundant than uranium in the Earth's crust. Similar to quartz extracted from sand, it is chiefly refined from a type of sand called monazite sand.

 

Reserve estimates

Under the USGS (US Geological Survey) estimate, USA, Australia, and India have particularly large reserves of thorium. Both the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) and OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) appear to conclude that India may possess the lion's share of world's thorium deposits.

 

The Government of India's latest estimate, shared in the country's Parliament in August 2011, puts the recoverable reserve at 846,477 tones.

 

When compared to uranium, there is a growing interest in developing a thorium fuel cycle due to its greater safety benefits, absence of non-fertile isotopes, and its higher occurrence and availability. India's three stage nuclear power programme is possibly the most well known and well funded of such efforts.

 

Research and development of thorium-based nuclear reactors, primarily the Liquid fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR), has been or is now being done in India, China, Norway, U.S., Israel and Russia.

 

Nuclear Fuel

India has the capability to use thorium cycle based processes to extract nuclear fuel. This is of special significance to the Indian nuclear power generation strategy as India has one of the world's largest reserves of thorium, which could provide power for more than 10,000 years , and perhaps as long as 60,000 years.

 

 

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Episode: Air India Flight 101

 

 

The FlightThe Boeing 707-437 VT-DMN had first flown on 5 April 1961 and was delivered new to Air India on 25 May 1961. It had flown a total of 16,188 hours.

 

 

The Morning of 24 January 1966Designated as Air India Flight 101, it was a scheduled passenger flight from Mumbai to London, operated by a Boeing 707, registration VT-DMN and named Kanchenjunga. After leaving Bombay, it had made two scheduled stops at Delhi and Beirut and was en route to another stop at Geneva. At Flight Level 190, the crew was instructed to descend for Geneva International Airport after the aircraft had passed Mont Blanc (the highest mountain in the Alps, Western Europe, and the European Union. It rises 4,810.45 m (15,782 ft) above sea level and is ranked 11th in the world in topographic prominence.).

 

The pilot, thinking that he had passed Mont Blanc, started to descend and flew into the Mont Blanc range in France near the Rochers de la Tournette, at an elevation of 4,750 metres (15,584 ft). All 106 passengers and 11 crew were killed.

 

VHF omnidirectional radio range (VOR) - It is a type of short-range radio navigation system for aircraft, enabling aircraft to determine their position and stay on course by receiving radio signals transmitted by a network of fixed ground radio beacons, with a receiver unit.

At the time, aircrew fixed the position of their aircraft as being above Mont Blanc by taking a cross-bearing from one VHF omnidirectional range (VOR) as they flew along a track from another VOR. However, the accident aircraft departed Beirut with one of its VOR receivers unserviceable.

 

The investigation concluded:

a) The pilot-in-command, who knew on leaving Beirut that one of the VORs was unserviceable, miscalculated his position in relation to Mont Blanc and reported his own estimate of this position to the controller; the radar controller noted the error, determined the position of the aircraft correctly and passed a communication to the aircraft which, he believed, would enable it to correct its position.

b) For want of a sufficiently precise phraseology, the correction was mis-understood by the pilot who, under the mistaken impression that he had passed the ridge leading to the summit and was still at a flight level which afforded sufficient safety clearance over the top of Mont Blanc, continued his descent.

 

Wreckage of the crashed Boeing still remains at the crash site. In 2008, a climber found some Indian newspapers dated 23 January 1966; an engine from the Air India Flight 245 crash aircraft was also found.

 

On 21 August 2012  a 9 kg jute bag of diplomatic mail, stamped "On Indian Government Service, Diplomatic Mail, Ministry of External Affairs" was recovered by a mountain rescue worker and turned over to local police. An official with the Indian Embassy in Paris took custody of the mailbag, which was found to be a "Type C" diplomatic pouch meant for newspapers, periodicals and personal letters. The mailbag was found to contain, among other items, still-white and legible copies of The Hindu and The Statesman from mid-January 1966, Air India calendars and a personal letter to the Indian consul-general in New York, C.G. K. Menon. The bag was flown back to New Delhi on a regular Air India flight, in the charge of C. R. Barooah, the flight purser. C.R. Barooah's father, R.C. Barooah, was the flight engineer on Air India Flight 101.

 

 

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Episode: Indian Nuclear Programme

 

 

Homi J. BhabhaHomi Jehangir Bhabha, FRS (30 October 1909 – 24 January 1966) was an Indian nuclear physicist, founding director, and professor of physics at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. Colloquially known as "father of Indian nuclear programme", Bhabha was the founding director of two well-known research institutions, namely the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) and the Trombay Atomic Energy Establishment (now named after him); both sites were the cornerstone of Indian development of nuclear weapons which Bhabha also supervised as its director.

 

 

Career

Starting his scientific career in nuclear physics from Great Britain, Bhabha returned to India for his annual vacation prior to start of theWorld War II in September 1939, prompting Bhabha to remain in India, and accepted a post of reader in physics at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, headed by Nobel laureate C.V. Raman. During this time, Bhabha played a key role in convincing the Congress Party's senior leaders, most notable Jawaharlal Nehru who later served as India's first Premier, to start the ambitious nuclear programme.

 

As part of this vision, Bhabha established the Cosmic Ray Research Unit at the institute, began to work on the theory of the movement of point particles, while independently conduct research on nuclear weapons in 1944.

 

In 1945, he established the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Bombay, and the Atomic Energy Commission in 1948, serving its first chairman. In 1948, Nehru led the appointment of Bhabha as the director of the nuclear programme and tasked Bhabha to develop the nuclear weapons soon after. In the 1950s, Bhabha represented India in IAEA conferences, and served as President of the United Nations Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy in Geneva, Switzerland in 1955. During this time, he intensified his lobbying for developing the nuclear weapons, and soon after the Sino-Indo war, Bhabha aggressively and publicly began to call for the nuclear weapons.

 

 

Tata Institute of Fundamental Research

When Bhabha was working at the Indian Institute of Science, there was no institute in India which had the necessary facilities for original work in nuclear physics, cosmic rays, high energy physics, and other frontiers of knowledge in physics. This prompted him to send a proposal in March 1944 to the Sir Dorabji Jamsetji Tata Trust for establishing 'a vigorous school of research in fundamental physics'.

 

The trustees of Sir Dorabji Jamsetji Tata Trust decided to accept Bhabha's proposal and financial responsibility for starting the Institute in April 1944. Bombay was chosen as the location for the prosed Institute as the Government of Bombay showed interest in becoming a joint founder of the proposed institute. The institute, named Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, was inaugurated in 1945  in 540 square meters of hired space in an existing building.

 

In 1948 the Institute was moved into the old buildings of the Royal Yacht club. When Bhabha realized that technology development for the atomic energy programme could no longer be carried out within TIFR he proposed to the government to build a new laboratory entirely devoted to this purpose. For this purpose, 1200 acres of land was acquired at Trombay from the Bombay Government.

 

Thus the Atomic Energy Establishment Trombay (AEET) started functioning in 1954. The same year the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) was also established. He represented India in International Atomic Energy Forums, and as President of the United Nations Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy, in Geneva, Switzerland in 1955. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1958.

 

India's three-stage nuclear power programmeBhabha is generally acknowledged as the father of Indian nuclear power. Moreover, he is credited with formulating the country's strategy in the field of nuclear power to focus on extracting power from the country's vast thorium reserves rather than its meager uranium reserves. This thorium focused strategy was in marked contrast to all other countries in the world. The approach proposed by Bhabha to achieve this strategic objective became India's three stage nuclear power programme.

 

Bhabha paraphrased the three stage approach as follows:

“ The total reserves of thorium in India amount to over 500,000 tons in the readily extractable form, while the known reserves of uranium are less than a tenth of this. The aim of long range atomic power programme in India must therefore be to base the nuclear power generation as soon as possible on thorium rather than uranium… The first generation of atomic power stations based on natural uranium can only be used to start off an atomic power programme… The plutonium produced by the first generation power stations can be used in a second generation of power stations designed to produce electric power and convert thorium into U-233, or depleted uranium into more plutonium with breeding gain… The second generation of power stations may be regarded as an intermediate step for the breeder power stations of the third generation all of which would produce more U-233 than they burn in the course of producing power. ”

 

Stage I – Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor

In the first stage of the programme, natural uranium fueled pressurized heavy water reactors (PHWR) produce electricity while generating plutonium-239 as by-product. PHWRs was a natural choice for implementing the first stage because it had the most efficient reactor design in terms of uranium utilization, and the existing Indian infrastructure in the 1960s allowed for quick adoption of the PHWR technology.

 

 

Stage II – Fast Breeder Reactor

In the second stage, Fast breeder reactors (FBRs) would use a mixed oxide (MOX) fuel made from plutonium-239, recovered by reprocessing spent fuel from the first stage, and natural uranium. In FBRs, plutonium-239 undergoes fission to produce energy, while the uranium-238 present in the mixed oxide fuel transmutes to additional plutonium-239. Thus, the Stage II FBRs are designed to "breed" more fuel than they consume. Once the inventory of plutonium-239 is built up thorium can be introduced as a blanket material in the reactor and transmuted to uranium-233 for use in the third stage.
The surplus plutonium bred in each fast reactor can be used to set up more such reactors, and thus grow the Indian civil nuclear power capacity till the point where the third stage reactors using thorium as fuel can be brought online.

 

 

Stage III – Thorium based Reactors

A Stage III reactor or an Advanced nuclear power system involves a self-sustaining series of thorium-232-uranium-233 fueled reactors. This would be a thermal breeder reactor, which in principle can be refueled – after its initial fuel charge – using only naturally occurring thorium.

 

KAMINI (Kalpakkam Mini reactor) is a research reactor at Indira Gandhi Center for Atomic Research in Kalpakkam, India. Its first criticality was on October 29, 1996. It produces 30 kW of thermal energy at full power. KAMINI is cooled and moderated by light water, and fueled with uranium-233 metal produced by the irradiation of thorium in other reactors.

 

KAMINI was the first reactor in the world designed specifically to use uranium-233 fuel.

 

As a result of Bhabha's vision, "India has the most technically ambitious and innovative nuclear energy program in the world. The extent and functionality of its nuclear experimental facilities are matched only by those in Russia and are far ahead of what is left in the US."

 

 

Death

He was awarded Padma Bhushan by Government of India in 1954. He later served as the member of the Indian Cabinet's Scientific Advisory Committee and provided the pivotal role to Vikram Sarabhai to set up the Indian National Committee for Space Research.

 

After his death, the Atomic Energy Establishment at Trombay was renamed as the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in his honour. He is one of the most prominent scientists that India has ever had. Bhabha also encouraged research in electronics, space science, radio astronomy and microbiology. The famed radio telescope at Ooty, India was his initiative, and it became a reality in 1970.

 

In January 1966, Bhabha died, while heading to Vienna, Austria to attend a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency's Scientific Advisory Committee.

 

Among the 106 passengers died in the crash of Air India Flight 101 on 24 January 1966, was the chairman of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission Dr Homi Jehangir Bhabha.

 

Many possible theories have been advanced for the air crash, including a conspiracy theory in which Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is involved in order to paralyze India's nuclear program.

 

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Episode: Thorium - revisited

 

The Great Thorium RobberyAccording to recent published report in ‘The Statesman’, the government has failed to control the export of monazite, the raw material from which thorium can be extracted, and has allowed extraction of 2.1 million tons of monazite.

 

The report estimates that if the thorium extracted from the monazite is estimated at $100 per ton, then the loss to the exchequer is approximately RS 48 lake crone, in addition to the incalculable loss to the nuclear fuel program.

 

The report comments on UPI's policy on natural resources. It says, “Since the UPA government assumed office in 2004 with Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister, 2.1 million tones of monazite, equivalent to 195,300 tons of thorium at 9.3 per cent recovery, has disappeared from the shores of India.”

 

‘Thorium disappearing’ should be considered more serious as it is related with India’s Nuclear programme. Thorium is a clean nuclear fuel of strategic importance for both nuclear energy generation and nuclear-tipped missiles. The beaches of Orissa Sand Complex, Manavalakurichi in Kanyakumari district of Tamil Nadu and the Aluva-Chavara belt on the Kerala coast have been identified under the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957, as the main monazite bearing areas in the country.

 

In most other countries, thorium reserves are embedded in rocks which require elaborate processing to extract.

 

Public sector Indian Rare Earths Limited (IREL) having divisions at Chatrapur in Orissa, Manavalakurichi in Tamil Nadu, Chavara and Aluva, and its own research centre in Kollam in Kerala, is the only institution authorised to extract thorium from monazite sands.

 

Financial Loss

If the Comptroller and Auditor-General were to audit the accounts of the IREL and the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), custodians of fissile minerals, the coalgate scam would look like small change. The missing thorium, conservatively estimated at $100 a ton, works out to about Rs 48 lakh crore, putting all other UPA scams in the shade.

 

The beach placer mining sector was opened to private entrepreneurs in 1998. Export of beach sands registered a quantum jump after 2005. As if to promote exports, even radioactive minerals, much needed for our nuclear energy programme, are allowed to be taken out of the country unchecked.

 

To add insult to injury, private exporters of prohibited minerals are presented with Special Awards and Certificates of Merit by the Chemicals and Allied Products Export Promotion Council (CAPEXIL) of the Government of India.

 

Indiscriminate mining, if not monitored and regulated, can cause severe erosion in the coastal areas.

 

Destroying Ramsetu: Easy approach to Thorium rich beaches?

 

It is considered that a large chunk of Thorium would be washed away if Ram Sethu is blasted. And almost all of it would be lost if another tsunami strikes the region. The Sethusamudram Canal, if built destroying RamSethu, will be beneficial to  private parties for easy snatching of beach sand for Thorium available on beaches of Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

 

The social organizations which protested against Sethusamudram Project said that since India had rich thorium resources and the technology to use it, the US was pressuring the Centre to speedily implement the Sethusamudram project (through India-US Nuclear Deal).

 

“We suspect an international conspiracy to prevent India from becoming a nuclear power as the thorium deposits will meet the country’s requirement for 400 years,” said a spokesperson of the Vishva Hindu Parishad which criticized destroying of Ramsetu.

 

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Catch Me If You Can

Abagnale is now a millionaire through his legal fraud detection and avoidance consulting business based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Abagnale also continues to advise the FBI, with whom he has associated for over 35 years, by teaching at the FBI Academy and lecturing for FBI field offices throughout the country. He also has a son who now works for the FBI.
Frank William Abagnale Jr. was born the third of four children and spent the first sixteen years of his life in New York's Bronxville. His French Algerian mother, Paula, and father, Frank Abagnale Sr., divorced when he was 16, and afterwards he would be the only child of whom his father would gain custody. According to Abagnale, his father did not necessarily want him, but in order to reunite his family he would attempt to win his mother back until his father's death in 1974. His father was also an affluent local who was very keen on politics, and was a major role model for Abagnale Jr.

First Con
His first victim was his father. As Frank Jr grew interested in women, he found that he could not stop spending money on them. In order to fund his exploits with the opposite sex, since he was always short on cash, he asked his father for a credit card on which to charge gas for the 1952 Ford truck his father gave him. He began to make deals with gas station employees all around the New York area to falsely charge items to his card, then give him a portion of the money; in return the employee got to keep the item and "resell" it for the full price. Over the course of 2 months, Frank Jr "bought" the following items for his vehicle:
14 sets of tires
22 batteries
large quantities of gasoline
The bill totaled up to $3,400, which his father discovered only after a debt collector contacted him in person, as Frank Jr was throwing away the bills that came in the mail. When confronting his son, Frank Sr. wasn't so worried about the expenses he'd accumulated, but rather that his son replied, "It's the girls, Dad, they do funny things to me. I can't explain it." This libido and greed-tainted response set the tone of his life until his imprisonment.

Bank fraud
Abagnale's first confidence trick was writing personal checks on his own overdrawn account, an activity which he discovered was possible when he wrote checks for more money than was in the account. This, however, would only work for a limited time before the bank demanded payment, so he moved on to opening other accounts in different banks, eventually creating new identities to sustain this charade. Over time, he experimented and developed different ways of defrauding banks, such as printing out his own almost-perfect copies of checks, depositing them and persuading banks to advance him cash on the basis of money in his accounts. The money, of course, never materialized as the checks deposited were rejected.

One of Abagnale's famous tricks was to print his account number on blank deposit slips and add them to the stack of real blank slips in the bank. This meant that the deposits written on those slips by bank customers ended up going into his account rather than that of the legitimate customers. He took in over $40,000 by this method before he was discovered. By the time the bank began looking into his case, Abagnale had collected all the money and already changed his identity.

Impersonations

Airline pilot
Pan American Airlines estimates that between the ages of 16 and 18, Frank Abagnale flew over 1,000,000 miles on over 250 flights and flew to 26 countries, at Pan Am's expense, by deadheading. He was also able to stay at hotels for free during this time. Everything from food to lodging was billed to the airline.

Teaching Assistant
He claims to have forged a Columbia University degree and taught sociology at Brigham Young University for a semester working as a teaching assistant by the name of "Frank Adams".

Doctor
For nearly a year, he impersonated a chief resident pediatrician in a Georgia hospital under the alias of Frank Conners. He chose to do this after nearly being caught by police after leaving a flight in New Orleans. Aware of possible capture, he retired to Georgia for the time being. When filling out an application for an apartment he listed his previous occupation as "doctor" fearing that the owner might check with Pan Am if he had listed "pilot". After becoming friends with a real doctor who lived beneath him, he became a resident supervisor of interns as a favor for him until they found someone who could take the job. He did not find the job difficult because supervisors did not have to do any actual medical work. However, as a medical layman, Abagnale was nearly discovered after almost letting a baby die through oxygen deprivation (he had no idea what the nurse meant when she said there was a "blue baby"). Abagnale was able to fake his way through most of his duties by letting the interns handle most of the cases that came in during his late night shift, for example setting broken bones and other such tasks. Finally, the hospital found another replacement and he returned to the air. In an interview with Frank Abagnale, he said that the supervisor had a death in the family and had to fly out West, during which Abagnale took the position. However, since they had trouble finding a permanent applicant, he stayed for twenty-five months.

Attorney
Abagnale forged a Harvard University law transcript, passed the bar exam of Louisiana and got a job at the office of the state attorney general of Louisiana at the age of nineteen. This happened while he was posing as Pan Am First Officer "Robert Black". He told a stewardess he had briefly dated that he was also a Harvard law student and she introduced him to a lawyer friend. Abagnale was told the bar needed more lawyers and was offered a chance to apply. After making a fake transcript from Harvard, he prepared himself for the compulsory exam. Despite failing twice, he claims to have passed the bar exam legitimately on the third try after 8 weeks of study, because "Louisiana at the time allowed you to (take) the Bar over and over as many times as you needed. It was really a matter of eliminating what you got wrong."
However, there was a real Harvard graduate who also worked for that attorney general, and he hounded Abagnale with questions about his tenure at Harvard. Naturally, Abagnale could not answer questions about a university he had never attended, and he later resigned after eight months to protect himself, after learning the suspicious graduate was making inquiries into his background.

Capture and imprisonment
Eventually he was caught in France in 1969 when an Air France attendant recognized his face from a wanted poster. When the French police apprehended him, 12 of the countries in which he had committed fraud wanted to extradite him.
After trial he was given a penalty 12 months in French prison (about 6 months served), 6 months in Swedish prison, 12 yr. in US prison (4 yr. served).

Alleged escapes
While being extradited to the U.S., Abagnale claims to have escaped from a British VC-10 airliner as it was turning onto a taxi strip at New York's JFK International Airport. Under cover of night, he scaled a nearby fence and hailed a cab to Grand Central Terminal. After stopping in the Bronx to change clothes and pick up a set of keys to a Montreal bank safe deposit box containing US$20,000. He was caught by a constable of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police while standing in line at the ticket counter and subsequently handed over to the U.S. Border Patrol.
Being sentenced to 12 years in the Federal Correction Institution at Petersburg, Virginia, in April 1971, Abagnale also reportedly escaped the Federal Detention Center in Atlanta, Georgia while awaiting trial, which he considers in his book to be one of the most infamous escapes in history. During the time, U.S. prisons were being condemned by civil rights groups and investigated by congressional committees. In a stroke of luck that included the accompanying U.S. marshal forgetting his detention commitment papers, Abagnale was mistaken for an undercover prison inspector and was even given privileges and food far better than the other inmates. The FDC in Atlanta had already lost two employees as a result of reports written by undercover federal agents, and Abagnale took advantage of their vulnerability. He contacted a friend (called in his book "Jean Sebring") who posed as his fiancee and slipped him the business card of "Inspector C.W. Dunlap" of the Bureau of Prisons which she had obtained by posing as a freelance writer doing an article on "fire safety measures in federal detention centers". She also handed over a business card from "Sean O'Riley" (later revealed to be Joe Shaye), the FBI agent in charge of Abagnale's case, which she doctored at a stationery print shop. Abagnale told the corrections officers that he was indeed a prison inspector and handed over Dunlap's business card as proof. He told them that he needed to contact FBI Agent Sean O'Riley, on a matter of urgent business. O'Riley's phone number was dialed and picked up by Jean Sebring, at a payphone in an Atlanta shopping-mall, posing as an operator at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Later, he was allowed to meet unsupervised with O'Riley in a predetermined car outside the detention center. Sebring, incognito, picked Abagnale up and drove him to an Atlanta bus station where he took a Greyhound bus to New York, and soon thereafter, a train to Washington, D.C.. Abagnale bluffed his way through an attempted capture by posing as an FBI agent after being recognized by a motel registration clerk. Still bent on making his way to Brazil, Abagnale was picked up a few weeks later by two New York City Police Department detectives when he inadvertently walked past their unmarked police car.
Legitimate jobs
In 1974, after he had served fewer than five years, the United States federal government released him on the condition that he would help the federal authorities without pay against crimes committed by fraud and scam artists, and sign in once a week.
After his release Abagnale tried several jobs, including cook, grocer and movie projectionist, but he was fired from most of these upon having his criminal career discovered via background checks and not informing his employers that he was a former convict. Finding them unsatisfying, he approached a bank with an offer. He explained to the bank what he had done, and offered to speak to the bank's staff and show various tricks that "paperhangers" use to defraud banks. His offer included the clause that stated if they did not find his speech helpful, they would owe him nothing; otherwise, they would only owe him $500, with an agreement that they would provide his name to other banks. The banks were impressed by the results, and he began a legitimate life as a security consultant.

He later founded Abagnale & Associates, which advises the business world on fraud. Through this system, he raised enough money to pay back all those he scammed over his criminal career. Abagnale is now a millionaire through this legal fraud detection and avoidance consulting business. Abagnale also continues to advise the FBI, by teaching at the FBI Academy and lecturing for FBI field offices throughout the country. He also has a son who now works for the FBI. According to his website, more than 14,000 institutions have adopted Abagnale's fraud prevention programs.
Joe Shaye, the FBI agent remained a close friend and a constant source of inspiration for Abagnale.

Post Box City: Chelyabinsk-40 Part II

Part – II

A Secret Facility
A close study of Powers' account of the U-2 mission flight shows that one of the last targets he had overflown was the Chelyabinsk-40, a secret facility town that had not appeared on any official maps.

Mayak is a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant between the towns of Kasli and Kyshtym 72 km northwest of Chelyabinsk in Russia. The plant is in the Ozersk central administrative territorial unit, formerly known as Chelyabinsk-40, later as Chelyabinsk-65, and part of the Chelyabinsk Oblast.

The Mayak plant was built in 1945-48, in a great hurry and in total secrecy, as part of the Soviet Union's nuclear weapon program. The plant's original mission was to make, refine, and machine plutonium for weapons. Five nuclear reactors were built for this purpose. Later the plant came to specialize in reprocessing plutonium from decommissioned weapons, and waste from nuclear reactors.

By photographing the facility, the heat rejection capacity of the reactors' cooling systems could be estimated, thus allowing a calculation of the power output of the reactors. This then allowed the amount of Plutonium being produced to be determined, thus allowing analysts to determine how many nuclear weapons the USSR was producing. Air defence missiles were positioned around Chelyabinsk-40 because of its extreme sensitivity.

In the early years of its operation, the Mayak plant released vast quantities of radioactively contaminated water into several small lakes near the plant, and into the Techa river, whose waters ultimately flow into the Ob River. The downstream consequences of this radiation pollution have yet to be determined.

Accidents

Working conditions at Mayak resulted in severe health hazards and many accidents, with a serious accident occurring in 1957. In the past 45 years, about half a million people in the region have been irradiated in one or more of the incidents, exposing some of them to more than 20 times the radiation suffered by the Chernobyl disaster victims.

The most notable accident occurred on 29 September 1957, when the failure of the cooling system for a tank storing tens of thousands of tons of dissolved nuclear waste resulted in a non-nuclear explosion having a force estimated at about 75 tons of TNT, which released some 20 MCi of radioactivity.

Subsequently, at least 200 people died of radiation sickness, 10,000 people were evacuated from their homes, and 470,000 people were exposed to radiation. People "grew hysterical with fear with the incidence of unknown 'mysterious' diseases breaking out. Victims were seen with skin 'sloughing off' their faces, hands and other exposed parts of their bodies." (Pollock 1978: 9) "Hundreds of square miles were left barren and unusable for decades and maybe centuries. Hundreds of people died, thousands were injured and surrounding areas were evacuated." (Zhores Medvedev, The Australian, 9.12.1976). This nuclear accident, the Soviet Union's worst before the Chernobyl disaster, is categorized as a level 6 "serious accident" on the 0-7 International Nuclear Events Scale.

Russians driving through the area in the 1960s and later found a deserted region where road signs ordered cars to close their windows and not stop for any reason (these directives may still be in force). Russians then relayed this information to Western contacts, and thus Western intelligence agencies came to know of this region. Rumours of a nuclear mishap somewhere in the vicinity of Chelyabinsk had long been circulating in the West. That there had been a serious nuclear accident west of the Urals was eventually inferred from research on the effects of radioactivity on plants, animals, and ecosystems, published by Professor Leo Tumerman, former head of the Biophysics Laboratory at the Institute of Molecular Biology in Moscow, and associates.

CIA Involvement

According to Gyorgy (1979: 128), who invoked the Freedom of Information Act to open up the relevant CIA files, the CIA knew of the 1957 Mayak accident all along, but kept it secret to prevent adverse consequences for the fledgling USA nuclear industry. "Ralph Nader surmised that the information had not been released because of the reluctance of the CIA to highlight a nuclear accident in the USSR, that could cause concern among people living near nuclear facilities in the USA" (Pollock 1978: 9). Only in 1992, shortly after the fall of the USSR, did the Russians officially acknowledge the accident.

On 10 December 1968, the facility was experimenting with plutonium purification techniques. Two operators were decanting plutonium solutions into the wrong type of vessel. After most of the solution had been poured out, there was a flash of light, and heat.

After the complex had been evacuated, the shift supervisor and radiation control supervisor re-entered the building. The shift supervisor then deceived the radiation control supervisor and entered the room of the incident and possibly attempted to pour the solution down a floor drain, causing a large nuclear reaction that irradiated the shift supervisor with a fatal dose of radiation.

The Mayak plant is associated with two other major nuclear accidents. The first occurred as a result of heavy rains causing Lake Karachay polluted with radioactive waste to release radioactive material into surrounding waters, and the second occurred in 1967 when wind spread dust from the bottom of Lake Karachay, a dried-up radioactively polluted lake (used as a dumping basin for Mayak's radioactive waste since 1951), over parts of Ozersk; over 400,000 people were irradiated.

Present Situation
At present, some residents of Ozersk claim that living there now (2006) poses no risk, because of the decrease in the ambient radiation level over the past 50 years. They also report no problems with their health and the health of Mayak plant workers. These claims lack hard verification, and no one denies that many who worked at the plant in 1950s and '60s subsequently died of the effects of radiation. While the situation has since improved, the administration of the Mayak plant has been repeatedly criticized in recent years for environmentally unsound practices

Today the plant makes tritium and radioisotopes, but no plutonium. In recent years, proposals that the plant reprocess, for money, waste from foreign nuclear reactors have given rise to controversy.

Post Box City: Chelyabinsk-40

Part – I: Gary Powers

In July 1957, Pakistani Prime Minister Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy was requested by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower to establish a secret U.S. intelligence facility in Pakistan and permission for the U-2 Spy-plane to fly from Pakistan. A facility established in Badaber, 10 miles from Peshawar, was a cover for a major communications intercept operation, run by the American NSA. Badaber was an excellent choice because of its proximity to Soviet Central Asia. This enabled monitoring of missile test sites and other communications.

The Lockheed U-2, nicknamed Dragon Lady, is a single-engine, high-altitude aircraft, earlier flown by the Central Intelligence Agency. The U-2 Spy-plane could reach altitudes of 80,000 feet, essentially making it invulnerable to Soviet anti-aircraft weapons of the time. The U-2 was equipped with a state-of-the-art camera designed to snap high-resolution photos from the edge of the atmosphere over hostile countries that included the Soviet Union. These cameras systematically photographed military installations and other important intelligence targets.

U-2 "spy-in-the-sky" was allowed to use the Pakistan Air Force portion of the Peshawar airport to gain vital photo intelligence in an era before satellite observation.

The Incident

On 9 April 1960, the U-2 Spy-plane of the special CIA unit "10-10" crossed the South national boundary of Soviet Union in the area of Pamir Mountains and flew over four Soviet top secret military objects: the Semipalatinsk Test Site, the Tu-95 air base, the Surface-to-Air Missile (SAM) test site of the Soviet Air Defence Forces near Saryshagan, and the Tyuratam missile range (future Baikonur Cosmodrome). The plane was detected by the Soviet Air Defense Forces at 4:47 when it flew away by more than 250 km from the Soviet national boundary and avoided several attempts of interception using MiG-19 and Su-9 during the flight. After U-2 left the Soviet air space at 11:32, it was clear that CIA successfully performed an extraordinary intelligence operation. In spite of the negative Soviet diplomatic reaction, the next flight of U-2 Spy-plane from the Badaber airbase was planned on the 1st May.

Gary Powers

Francis Gary Powers (August 17, 1929 – August 1, 1977) was an American pilot and a veteran of several covert aerial reconnaissance missions.

Powers was born in Jenkins, Kentucky, and raised in Pound, Virginia, on the Virginia-Kentucky border. After graduating from Milligan College in Eastern Tennessee, Frank was commissioned in the United States Air Force in 1950. Upon completing his training (52-H) he was assigned to the 468th Strategic Fighter Squadron at Turner Air Force Base, Georgia as an F-84 Thunderjet pilot.
Later in 1956 when he was with the rank of captain he was recruited by the CIA because of his outstanding record in single engine jet aircraft.

He carried out espionage missions using U-2 to snap high-resolution photos of military installations and other important intelligence targets from the edge of the atmosphere over the Soviet Union.

On May 1, 1960, thirteen days before the scheduled opening of an East–West summit conference in Paris, a U.S. Lockheed U-2 left US base in Badaber on a mission to over-fly the Soviet Union, photographing ICBM sites in and around Sverdlovsk and Plesetsk, then land at Bodø in Norway.

Soviet intelligence, including the KGB, had been well aware of U-2 missions since 1956, but lacked the technology to launch counter-measures until 1960. All units of the Soviet Air Defence Forces in the Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Siberia, Ural and later in the U.S.S.R. European Region and Extreme North were on red alert, expecting the planned mission of U-2.

Powers’ U-2, departed from a military airbase Badaber on May 1, 1960. Soon after the plane was detected, Lieutenant General of the Air Force Yevgeniy Savitskiy ordered the air-unit commanders "to attack the violator by all alert flights located in the area of foreign plane's course, and to ram as necessary".

Due to the U-2's extreme operating altitude, Soviet attempts to intercept the plane using fighter aircrafts failed. Moreover, the U-2's course was out of range of several of the nearest SAM sites, and one SAM site even failed to engage the violator since it wasn't on duty that day.

Soviets had shadowed his plane from a lower altitude, then took him down as he crossed over Sverdlosk, which was deep in enemy territory.

According to the official version of the event the U-2 was eventually hit and brought down near Degtyarsk, Ural Region, by a salvo of fourteen SA-2 Guideline (S-75 Dvina) surface-to-air missiles. However, the plane's pilot, Gary Powers, successfully bailed out and parachuted to safety, although in doing so he violated his orders to destroy the aircraft were he to be shot down. To make matters worse, Powers was unable to activate the plane's self-destruct mechanism, as instructed, before he parachuted safely to the ground, right into the hands of the KGB.

Powers had been issued with a modified silver dollar which contained a lethal, shellfish-derived saxitoxin, although in the event he did not use it. In bailing out, he neglected to disconnect his oxygen hose and struggled with it until it broke, enabling him to separate from the aircraft. A subsequent missile salvo also hit the aircraft, further damaging it and would likely have killed Powers outright (he was captured soon afterward).

The SAM command center was unaware that the plane was actually destroyed for more than 30 minutes. One of the Soviet fighters pursuing Powers was also destroyed in the missile salvo.

When the U.S. government learned of Powers' disappearance over the Soviet Union, it issued a cover statement claiming that a "weather plane" had crashed down after its pilot had "difficulties with his oxygen equipment." What U.S. officials did not realize was that the plane landed almost fully intact, and the Soviets recovered its photography equipment, as well as Powers.

Four days after Powers disappeared, NASA issued a very detailed press release noting that an aircraft had "gone missing" north of Turkey. The press release speculated that the pilot might have fallen unconscious while the autopilot was still engaged, even falsely claiming that "the pilot reported over the emergency frequency that he was experiencing oxygen difficulties." To bolster this, a U-2 plane was quickly painted in NASA colors and shown to the media.

After learning of this, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev announced to the Supreme Soviet, and thus the world, that a "spyplane" had been shot down but intentionally made no reference to the pilot. As a result, the Eisenhower Administration, thinking the pilot had died in the crash, authorized the release of a cover story claiming that the plane was a "weather research aircraft" which had strayed into Soviet airspace after the pilot had radioed "difficulties with his oxygen equipment" while flying over Turkey. The Eisenhower White House gracefully acknowledged that this might be the same plane, but still proclaimed that "there was absolutely no deliberate attempt to violate Soviet airspace and never has been", and attempted to continue the facade by grounding all U-2 aircraft to check for "oxygen problems."

On May 7, Khrushchev sprang his trap and announced:

“I must tell you a secret. When I made my first report I deliberately did not say that the pilot was alive and well… and now just look how many silly things the Americans have said”

Not only was Powers still alive, but his plane was also essentially intact. The Soviets managed to recover the surveillance camera and even developed some of the photographs. Powers’ survival pack, including 7500 rubles and jewellery for women, was also recovered.

Ultimately the whole incident set back the peace talks between Khrushchev and Eisenhower for years. The Paris Summit between president Dwight Eisenhower and Nikita Khrushchev collapsed, in large part because Eisenhower refused to accede to Khrushchev's demands that he apologize for the incident. Khrushchev left the talks on May 16.

They interrogated Powers extensively for months before he made a "voluntary confession" and public apology for his part in U.S. espionage. Powers plead guilty and was convicted of espionage on August 19 and sentenced to 3 years’ imprisonment and 7 years of hard labor. He served one and three-quarter years of the sentence before being exchanged for Soviet KGB Colonel Vilyam Fisher (aka Rudolf Abel) February 10, 1962. The exchange occurred on the Glienicke Bridge connecting Potsdam, East Germany, to West Berlin.

Today a large part of the wreck as well as many items from the survival pack are on display at the Central Museum of Armed Forces in Moscow. A small piece of the plane was returned to the United States and is on display at the National Cryptologic Museum.

Another result of the crisis was that the U.S. Corona spy satellite project was accelerated, while the CIA accelerated the development of the A–12 OXCART supersonic spyplane that first flew in 1962 and began developing the Lockheed D-21/M-21 unmanned drone.

The incident severely compromised Pakistan security and worsened relations between the Soviet Union and Pakistan. As an attempt to put up a bold front, Pakistani General Khalid Mahmood Arif while commenting on the incident stated that, "Pakistan felt deceived because the US had kept her in the dark about such clandestine spy operations launched from Pakistan’s territory." The communications wing at Badaber was formally closed down on January 7, 1970.

Though Powers claimed he had not divulged details of the U-2 program, he received a cold reception upon his return to the United States. Initially, he was criticized for having failed to activate his aircraft’s self-destruct charge designed to destroy the camera, photographic film, and related classified parts of his aircraft before capture. In addition, others criticized him for deciding not to use an optional CIA-issued suicide pin to avoid pain and suffering in case of torture. After being debriefed extensively by the CIA, Lockheed, and the USAF, on March 6, 1962, he appeared before a Senate Armed Services Select Committee. During the proceeding it was determined that Powers followed orders, did not divulge any critical information to the Soviets, and conducted himself “as a fine young man under dangerous circumstances.”

Return to US

After his return, Powers worked for Lockheed as a test pilot, later he co-wrote a book called Operation Overflight: A Memoir of the U-2 Incident , and then worked as an airborne traffic reporter for radio station KGIL in the San Fernando Valley. He was then hired by Los Angeles television station KNBC to pilot their new "telecopter", a helicopter equipped with externally mounted 360 degree cameras.

Powers died on August 1, 1977, when, upon his return from covering brush fires in Santa Barbara County, his helicopter ran out of fuel and crashed along with KNBC cameraman George Spears.

Many have wondered or speculated on how an experienced pilot such as Powers could have allowed the aircraft to run out of fuel. Allegedly Powers knew his helicopter had a fuel gauge error. When Powers fuel gauge indicator displayed "Empty", he actually had enough fuel for thirty minutes of flight time remaining. Apparently an aviation mechanic fixed the fuel gauge in the KNBC helicopter, but Powers was not told of the correction. When he was returning to Burbank from the brush fire coverage Powers fuel gauge displayed "Empty", but thinking he had thirty minutes of flight time remaining, he continued flying and subsequently crashed. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

In 1998, information was declassified revealing that Powers’ fateful mission had actually been a joint USAF/CIA operation. In 2000, on the 40th anniversary of Powers being shot down, his family was finally presented with his posthumously awarded Prisoner of War Medal, Distinguished Flying Cross and National Defense Service Medal. In addition, then CIA Director George Tenet authorized Powers to posthumously receive the CIA "Director's Medal" for extreme fidelity and courage in the line of duty.

According to his son, when asked how high he was when flying on May 1, 1960, Powers would often reply, "not high enough".

End of Part I

The Story of D.B.Cooper

I came across an article in the wikipedia - the knowledge base (as usual), that was very much intriguing. Here goes it, but don't miss the epilogue.



Preface

The Case

D.B. Cooper is the name used to refer to a man who hijacked a Boeing 727 aircraft on November 24, 1971, received US$200,000 in ransom, and jumped from the plane in flight with a parachute. The name he actually used to board the plane was Dan Cooper, but through a later press miscommunication, he became known as "D. B. Cooper". Despite hundreds of suspects through the years, no conclusive evidence has surfaced regarding Cooper's true identity or whereabouts, and the bulk of the money was never recovered. The FBI believes he did not survive the jump. Several theories offer competing explanations of what happened after his famed jump.

The nature of Cooper's escape and the uncertainty of his fate continue to intrigue people. The Cooper case (code-named "Norjak" by the FBI) remains an unsolved mystery, is one of the world's only unsolved cases of aircraft hijacking.


The Incident

On Wednesday, November 24, 1971, the day before Thanksgiving in the United States, a man traveling under the name Dan Cooper boarded a Boeing 727-100, Northwest Orient (now known as Northwest Airlines) Flight 305 (FAA Reg. N467US), flying from Portland International Airport (PDX) in Portland, Oregon to Seattle, Washington. Cooper was in his mid-forties, and 6 feet tall. He wore a black raincoat, loafers, a dark suit, a neatly pressed white collared shirt, a black necktie, black sunglasses and a mother-of-pearl tie pin. Cooper sat in the back of the plane in seat 18C. After the jet had taken off from Portland, he handed a note to a young flight attendant named Florence Schaffner, who was seated in a jump-seat attached to the aft stair door, situated directly behind and to the left of Cooper's seat.

Ms. Schaffner thought he was giving her his phone number, so she slipped it, unopened, into her pocket. Cooper leaned closer and said, "Miss, you'd better look at that note. I have a bomb."

In the envelope was a note that read: "I have a bomb in my briefcase. I will use it if necessary. I want you to sit next to me. You are being hijacked."

The note also provided demands for $200,000, in unmarked $20 bills, and two sets of parachutes—two main back chutes and two emergency chest chutes. The note carried instructions ordering the items to be delivered to the plane when it landed at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport; if the demands were not met, he would blow up the plane. When the flight attendant informed the cockpit about Cooper and the note, the pilot, William Scott, contacted Seattle-Tacoma air traffic control, who contacted Seattle police and the FBI.

The FBI contacted Northwest Airlines president Donald Nyrop, who instructed Scott to cooperate with the hijacker. Scott instructed Schaffner to go back and sit next to Cooper, and ascertain if the bomb was in fact real. Sensing this, Cooper opened his briefcase momentarily, long enough for Schaffner to see red cylinders, a large battery, and wires, convincing her the bomb was real. He instructed her to tell the pilot not to land until the money and parachutes Cooper had requested were ready at Seattle-Tacoma. She went back to the cockpit to relay Cooper's instructions.

Following Cooper's demands, the jet was put into a holding pattern over Puget Sound, while Cooper's demands for $200,000 and four parachutes were met. In assembling the cash demands, FBI agents followed Cooper's instruction for unmarked bills, but they decided to give bills printed in 1969, that all had serial numbers beginning with the letter L, issued by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. The agents also photographed all 10,000 $20 bills to keep a microfilm record of all the bill serial numbers. Authorities initially intended to obtain military-issue parachutes from McChord Air Force Base, but Cooper said he wanted civilian parachutes, which had manually operated ripcords. Seattle police were able to find Cooper's preferred parachutes at a local skydiving school.

Meanwhile, Cooper sat in the airplane, drinking bourbon whiskey and soda. At 17:24, airport traffic control radioed Scott and told him that Cooper's demands had been met. Cooper then gave Captain Scott permission to land at the flight's intended destination, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA) near Seattle, Washington.

The plane landed at the airport at 17:39. Cooper then instructed Scott to taxi the plane to a remote section of the tarmac and also dim the lights in the cabin to deter police snipers. He instructed air traffic control to send one person to deliver the $200,000 and four parachutes, unaccompanied. The person chosen, a Northwest Orient employee, drove to the plane and delivered the cash and parachutes to flight attendant Mucklow, via the aft stairs.

A few minutes after his demands were met, Cooper released all 36 passengers and attendant Schaffner via the aft stairs. Pilot Scott, flight attendant Mucklow, First Officer Bob Rataczak and flight engineer H. E. Anderson were not permitted to leave the aircraft.

The FBI was puzzled regarding Cooper's plans, and his request of four parachutes. The agents wondered if Cooper had an accomplice on board, or if the parachutes were intended for the four people on the plane (the pilot, the co-pilot, a flight attendant and himself). Up to this point in history, nobody had ever attempted to jump with a parachute from a hijacked commercial aircraft.

While the plane was being refueled, an FAA official, who wanted to explain to the hijacker the legal consequences of air piracy, walked to the door of the plane and asked Cooper's permission to come aboard the plane. Cooper promptly denied the official's request. A vapor lock in the fuel tanker truck's engines slowed down the refueling process. Cooper became suspicious when the refueling had still not been completed after 15 minutes. He made threats to blow up the plane, upon which the fuel crew promptly tried to speed up the job until completion.

After refueling, careful examination of the ransom and parachutes, and negotiations regarding the flight pattern and the position of the aft stairs upon take-off, Cooper ordered the flight crew to take the hijacked jet back into the air at around 19:40. The crew was ordered to fly to Mexico City, at a relatively low speed of 170 knots (200 mph or 320 km/h), an altitude at or under 10,000 feet (normal cruising altitude is between 25,000 and 37,000 feet), with the landing gear down and 15 degrees of flap. However, First Officer Rataczak told him that the jet could only fly 1,000 miles under the altitude and airspeed conditions Cooper ordered. Cooper and the crew discussed other possible locations, before deciding on flying to Reno, Nevada, where they would again refuel.

They also agreed to fly on Victor 23 as depicted on the Jeppesen air navigational charts, a low-altitude Federal airway that passed west of the Cascade Range. Cooper then ordered Scott to leave the cabin unpressurized. An unpressurized cabin at 10,000 feet (3,000 m) would curtail the risk of a sudden rush of air exiting the plane (and ease the opening of the pressure door) if he were to attempt to exit the aircraft for a subsequent parachute landing.

Immediately upon takeoff, Cooper asked Mucklow, who had previously been sitting with him, to go back to the cockpit and stay there. Before she went behind the curtain that separates the coach and first-class seats, she watched him tie something to his waist with what she thought was rope. Moments later in the cockpit, the crew noticed a light flash indicating that Cooper attempted to operate the door. Over the intercom, Scott asked Cooper if there was anything they could do for him, but the hijacker replied curtly, "No!"

The crew started to notice a change of air pressure in the cabin (an "ear popping experience"). Cooper had lowered the aft stairs and jumped out of the plane never to be seen again.

That was the last time D. B. Cooper was known to be alive. The FBI believed his descent was at 20:13 over the southwestern portion of the state of Washington, because the aft stairway "bumped" at this time, most likely due to the weight of Cooper being released from the aft stairs. At the time Cooper jumped, the plane was flying through a heavy rainstorm, with no light source coming from the ground due to cloud coverage.

Because of the poor visibility, his descent went unnoticed by the United States Air Force F-106 jet fighters tracking the airliner. He initially was believed to have landed southeast of the unincorporated area of Ariel, Washington, near Lake Merwin, 30 miles north of Portland, Oregon (45°57′N 122°39′W / 45.95, -122.65). Later information, including details given by Captain Scott to the FBI in 1980 that led to a more accurate assessment of the flight route, put the jump location about 20 miles farther east. His precise landing zone remains unknown.

Nearly 2 1/2 hours after take-off from Seattle-Tacoma, at approximately 22:15, with the aft stairs dragging on the runway, the Boeing 727 landed safely in Reno. The airport and runway were surrounded by FBI agents and local police. After communicating with Captain Scott, it was determined Cooper was gone, and FBI agents boarded the plane to search for any evidence left behind. They recovered a number of fingerprints (which may or may not have belonged to Cooper), a tie and mother-of-pearl tie clip, and two of the four parachutes. Cooper was nowhere to be found, nor was his briefcase, the money, the moneybag, or the two remaining parachutes. The individuals with whom Cooper had interacted on board the plane and while he was on the ground were interrogated to compile a composite sketch; those interviewed all gave nearly identical descriptions of him, leading the FBI to create the sketch that has been used on wanted posters ever since. As of 2008, the FBI maintains that the sketch is an accurate likeness of Cooper because so many individuals, interviewed simultaneously in separate locations, gave nearly identical descriptions.

Despite an 18-day search of the projected landing zone in 1971, no trace of Cooper or his parachute was found. An exact landing point was difficult to determine, as the plane's 300 feet -per-second speed would make even small differences in timing move the projected landing point considerably. This led the FBI to determine that Cooper could not have known exactly where he would land, and therefore must not have had an accomplice waiting to assist him upon landing.

A ground search, using the assistance of 400 troops from nearby Fort Lewis, was conducted in April 1972. After six weeks of searching the projected dropzone on foot, no evidence was found related to the hijacking. As a result, it remains a widely disputed subject whether he survived the jump and then subsequently escaped on foot. Shortly after the hijacking, the FBI questioned and then released a Portland man by the name of D. B. Cooper, who was never considered a significant suspect. Due to a miscommunication with the media, however, the initials "D. B." became firmly associated with the hijacker and this is how he is now known.

Meanwhile, the FBI also stepped up efforts to track the 10,000 ransomed $20 bills by notifying banks, savings and loans companies, and other businesses of the notes’ serial numbers. Law enforcement agencies around the globe, including Scotland Yard, also received information on Cooper and the serial numbers. In the months following the hijacking, Northwest Airlines offered a reward of 15 percent of the recovered money up to a maximum of $25,000, but the airline eventually canceled the offer as no new substantial evidence seemed to arise. In November 1973, The Oregon Journal, based in Portland, began publishing the first public listings of the serial numbers with permission from the FBI and offered $1,000 to the first person who could claim to have found a single one of the $20 bills. Despite reported interest from around the country and several alleged near-matches, the newspaper never received a claim of an exact serial number match.


Investigation

In late 1978, a placard, which contained instructions on how to lower the aft stairs of a 727, from the rear stairway of the plane from which Cooper jumped, was found by a hunter just a few flying minutes north of Cooper's projected drop zone.

On February 10, 1980, Brian Ingram, then eight years old, was with his family on a picnic when he found $5,880 in decaying bills (a total of 294 $20 bills), still bundled in rubber bands, approximately 40 feet from the waterline and just 2 inches below the surface, on the banks of the Columbia River 5 miles northwest of Vancouver, Washington. After comparing the serial numbers with those from the ransom given to Cooper almost nine years earlier, it was proven that the money found by Ingram was part of the ransom given to Cooper.

Upon the discovery, then-FBI lead investigator Ralph Himmelsbach declared that the money "must have been deposited within a couple of years after the hijacking" because "rubber bands deteriorate rapidly and could not have held the bundles together for very long". However, some scientists noted their belief that the money arrived at the beach as a result of a 1974 Army Corps of Engineers dredging operation. Furthermore, some scientists estimated that the money’s arrival must have occurred even later. Geologist Leonard Palmer of Portland State University, for example, reportedly concluded that the 1974 dredging operation did not place the money on the Columbia's riverbank because Ingram had found the bills above clay deposits put on shore by the dredge. The FBI generally agree now that the money had to have arrived at the location on the riverbank no earlier than 1974. Some investigators and hydrologists have theorized that the bundled bills washed freely into the Columbia River from one of its many connecting tributaries, such as the Washougal River, which originate or run near Cooper's suspected landing zone.

Ingram's discovery of the $5,880 reinforced the FBI's belief that Cooper probably did not survive the jump, in large part because of the unlikelihood that such a criminal would be willing to leave behind any of the loot for which he had risked his life. Ingram was eventually allowed to keep $2,860 of this money. In 2007, he announced that he planned to auction off the few bills that he still maintains in a bank vault. As of 2008, the remaining amount of money has not been found.

Suspects

At various points, several people have been suggested as possible candidates for Cooper, although the case remains unsolved. Over the years, the suspect list has exceeded 1,000 people.

The FBI believed that Cooper was familiar with the Seattle area, as he was able to recognize Tacoma from the air while the jet was circling over the Puget Sound. He also remarked to flight attendant Mucklow that McChord Air Force Base was approximately 20 minutes from the Seattle-Tacoma Airport. Although the FBI initially believed that Cooper might have been an active or retired member of the United States Air Force, based on his apparent knowledge of jet aerodynamics and skydiving, it later changed this assessment, deciding that no experienced parachutist would have attempted such a risky jump.

John List
In 1971, mass-murderer John List was considered a suspect in the Cooper hijacking, which occurred only fifteen days after he had killed his family in Westfield, New Jersey. List's age, facial features, and build were similar to those described for the mysterious skyjacker. FBI agent Ralph Himmelsbach stated that List was a "viable suspect" in the case. Cooper parachuted from the hijacked airliner with $200,000, the same amount List had used up from his mother's bank account in the days before the killing. After his capture and imprisonment in 1989, List strenuously denied being Cooper, and the FBI no longer considered him a suspect. List died in prison custody on March 21, 2008.

Richard McCoy, Jr.
On April 7, 1972, four months after Cooper's hijacking, Richard McCoy, Jr., under the alias "James Johnson", boarded United Airlines Flight 855 during a stopover in Denver, Colorado, and gave the flight steward an envelope labeled "Hijack Instructions", in which he demanded four parachutes and $500,000. He also instructed the pilot to land at San Francisco International Airport and ordered a refueling truck for the plane. The airplane was a Boeing 727 with aft stairs, which McCoy used in his escape. He was carrying a paper weight grenade and an empty pistol. He left his handwritten message on the plane, along with his fingerprints on a magazine he had been reading, which the FBI later used to establish positive identification.

Police began investigating McCoy following a tip from Utah Highway Patrolman Robert Van Ieperen, who was a friend of McCoy's. Apparently, after the Cooper hijacking, McCoy had made a reference that Cooper should have asked for $500,000, instead of $200,000. Van Ieperen thought that was an odd coincidence, so he alerted the FBI. Married and with two young children, McCoy was a Mormon Sunday school teacher studying law enforcement at Brigham Young University. He had a record as a Vietnam veteran and was a former helicopter pilot, and an avid skydiver.

On April 9, following the fingerprint and handwriting match, McCoy was arrested for the United 855 hijacking. Coincidentally, McCoy had been on National Guard duty flying one of the helicopters involved in the search for the hijacker. Inside his house FBI agents found a jumpsuit and a duffel bag filled with $499,970 in cash. McCoy claimed innocence, but was convicted and received a 45-year sentence. Once incarcerated, using his access to the prison's dental office, McCoy fashioned a fake handgun out of dental paste. He and a crew of convicts escaped in August 1974 by stealing a garbage truck and crashing it through the prison's main gate. It took three months before the FBI located McCoy in Virginia. McCoy shot at the FBI agents, and agent Nicholas O'Hara fired back with a shotgun, killing him.

In 1991, Bernie Rhodes and former FBI agent Russell Calame coauthored D.B. Cooper: The Real McCoy, in which they claimed that Cooper and McCoy were really the same person, citing similar methods of hijacking and a tie and mother-of-pearl tie clip, left on the plane by Cooper. Neither Rhodes nor Calame were involved in the original Cooper investigation, but Calame was the head of the Utah FBI office that investigated McCoy, and eventually arrested him for the copycat hijacking that occurred in April 1972. The author said that McCoy "never admitted nor denied he was Cooper." And when McCoy was directly asked whether he was Cooper he replied, "I don't want to talk to you about it." The agent who killed McCoy is quoted as supposedly saying, "When I shot Richard McCoy, I shot D. B. Cooper at the same time." The widow of Richard McCoy, Karen Burns McCoy, reached a $120,000 legal settlement with the book's co-authors and its publisher, after claiming they misrepresented her involvement in the hijacking and later events from interviews done with her attorney in the 1970s.

Duane Weber
In July 2000, U.S. News & World Report ran an article about a widow in Pace, Florida, named Jo Weber and her claim that her late husband, Duane L. Weber (born 1924 in Ohio), had told her "I'm Dan Cooper" before his death on March 28, 1995. She became suspicious and began checking into his background. Weber had served in the Army during World War II and had later served time in a prison near the Portland airport. Weber recalled that her husband had once had a nightmare where he talked in his sleep about jumping from a plane and said something about leaving his fingerprints on the aft stairs. Jo recalled that shortly before Duane's death, he had revealed to her that an old knee injury of his had been incurred by "jumping out of a plane".

Weber also recounts a 1979 vacation the couple took to Seattle, "a sentimental journey", Duane told Jo, with a visit to the Columbia River. She remembers how Duane walked down to the banks of the Columbia by himself just four months before the portion of Cooper's cash was found in the same area. Weber related that she had checked out a book on the Cooper case from the local library and saw notations in it that matched her husband's handwriting. She began corresponding with Himmelsbach, the former chief investigator of the case, who subsequently agreed that much of the circumstantial evidence surrounding Weber fit the hijacker's profile. However, the FBI stopped investigating Weber in July 1998 because of a lack of hard evidence.

The FBI compared Weber's prints with those processed from the hijacked plane and found no matches. In October 2007, the FBI stated that a partial DNA sample taken from the J.C. Penney department store brand tie that Cooper had left on the plane did not belong to Weber.

Kenneth Christiansen
The October 29, 2007 issue of New York magazine revealed a new suspect, Kenneth P. Christiansen, identified by Sherlock Investigations. The article noted that Christiansen is a former army paratrooper, a former airline employee, had settled in Washington near the site of the hijacking, was familiar with the local terrain, had purchased property with cash a year after the hijacking, drank bourbon and smoked (as did Cooper during the flight) and resembled the eyewitness sketches of Cooper. However, the FBI ruled out Christiansen because his complexion, height, weight and eye color did not match the descriptions given by the passengers or the crew of Flight 305.

Latest on the case

On November 1, 2007, the FBI released detailed information concerning some of the evidence in their possession, which had never before been revealed to the public. The FBI displayed Cooper's 1971 plane ticket from Portland to Seattle, which cost $18.52. It also revealed that he requested four parachutes—two main back chutes and two reserve chest chutes. Authorities inadvertently supplied Cooper with a "dummy" reserve chute—an unusable parachute that is sewn shut for classroom demonstration. The dummy chute was not left behind on the plane, and some theorize Cooper did not realize it was not functional. This piece of information had been revealed in a 1979 episode of TV documentary series In Search of.... The other reserve parachute, which was a functional parachute, was popped open and the shrouds were cut and supposedly used to secure the money bag.

On December 31, 2007, the FBI issued a press release containing never before seen photos and fact sheets online in an attempt to trigger memories or useful information regarding Cooper's identity. In the fact sheets, the FBI withdrew its previous theory that Cooper was either an experienced skydiver or paratrooper. While it was initially believed that Cooper must have had training to have performed such a feat, later analysis of the chain of events led the FBI to reevaluate this claim. Investigators said that no experienced paratrooper or skydiver would attempt a jump during a rainstorm with no light source. Investigators also believe that, even if Cooper was in a hurry to escape, an experienced jumper or paratrooper would have stopped to inspect his chutes.

On March 24, 2008, the FBI announced that it was in possession of a parachute recovered from a field in northern Clark County, Washington, near the town of Amboy. A property owner was in the process of making a private road with a bulldozer when the blade caught some cloth, and his children pulled the cloth until the canopy lines appeared. Earl Cossey, the man who provided the four parachutes that were given to Cooper by the FBI, examined the newly found chute and on April 1, 2008 said that "absolutely, for sure" it could not have been one of the four that he supplied in 1971. The Cooper parachutes were made of nylon, unlike the new chute that was recovered which is made of silk and most likely made around 1945. The FBI later made a press release confirming Cossey's findings. Investigators reached their official conclusion after consulting Cossey and other parachute experts. "From the best we could learn from the people we spoke to, it just didn't look like it was the right kind of parachute in any way," said FBI spokeswoman Robbie Burroughs.[49] Further digging at the site in southwestern Washington turned up no indication that it could have been Cooper's.

Hence, the case closed, cold.
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Epilogue

Federal Bureau of Investigation
#935, Pennsylvania Ave. NW,
Washington DC.

Classified Archive Vault
Records Management Division, Administrative Branch

File Name: NORJAK
Case of D. B. Cooper alias Dan Cooper
Case tags:

D.B.Cooper, Dan Cooper, Hijack, Flight-305, Boeing 727-100,

Unsolved, N467US, Northwest, PDX, , Richard McCoy Jr., SEA

Status: Closed

[Extract from the file – (modified)]
… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …
As assumed there was no complaint from the subject regarding the unusable parachutes provided to him. He may not have checked them in his urgency of executing his devised plan.
The plan was to prolong the negotiation with the subject in case he comes back discovering the torn parachutes and force the plane to land for refueling and storm in. Or leave the subject to use the parachute.

He used the parachute.

Case closed.

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Mr. Carlos De Amate
Boulevard Costero 87564,
Ciudad Madero,
Tamaulipas, Tampico, Mexico

Diary
Friday, 25 February, 1972

At last a peaceful weekend to relax with my favorite bourbon whiskey. It’s been almost around 3 months since the ‘fall’. The search is still going on. Federal brasses are not going to reveal what they had really planned – too much of human rights shouts are saving our skins nowadays.

I just want to see how long they are going to take to find out that I had carried another luggage with a parachute intact.

Funny that they had expected that I will be making my plans assuming they will definitely give me a parachute and will use it for my escape.

Thanks for the Tina for missing to identify my own parachute.

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The End.

And the epilogue is a work of fiction, inspired by the case of D.B.Cooper and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental, apart from the facts depicted.