D. B. Cooper: the Barnowsky scenario

dfs346

dfs346

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The FBI's latest release "D.B. Cooper Skyjacking Part 98" reveals that an early suspect in the hijacking of Flight 305 was Fred A Barnowsky, smokejumper and Redding Base Manager for the US Forest Service. Declassified CIA documents indicate that Barnowsky was a contract parachute rigger and Parachute Dispatch Officer for the CIA, and a participant in the disastrous Bay of Pigs mission.

www.goodreads.com

D. B. Cooper and Flight 305: Fred Barnowsky

On September 4, 2024, the FBI released “D. B. Cooper Skyjacking Part 98”, its latest monthly compendium of partially declassified documents from the Norj...
www.goodreads.com

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(Left and center) Fred Barnowsky in 1949. Image credit: unknown, by courtesy of National Smokejumper Association and Eastern Washington University. (Right) Image KK5-1 from the FBI Facial Identification Catalog of 1971 (of which the second stewardess said “that’s him”); image credit: FBI, with my additional graphics.
 
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(Left and upper right) Fred A. Barnowsky in 1958. Image credit: Fresno Bee, by courtesy of Joey Lyon. (Lower right) Image KK5-1 from the FBI Facial Identification Catalog of 1971 (of which the second stewardess said “that’s him, except for the hair and ears”); image credit: FBI, with my additional graphics.

Barnowsky 1958 & kK5-1.png
 
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Interesting how the 1949 and 1958 pics of Barnowsky don't look much alike. Of course, neither looks like the sketch of DBC.

Is there supposed to be a point?
 
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I always wonder why SOME of the money was found near Kalama......on the banks of the Columbia River.
(BTW) (Sorry for the thread creep) McMenamins there is a replica of the Pioneer Inn that burned in Lahaina.


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Half Fast said:
Is there supposed to be a point?
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To my mind, the FBI’s early identification of Barnowsky as a suspect, followed by his elimination, merits further study. To this end, I have submitted FOIA requests to the FBI, for a copy of the US Forest Service photo of Barnowsky, and to the CIA, for documentation of Barnowsky's work for the CIA between 1961 and 1971.
 
MooneyDriver78 said:
They have a completely different hair line.
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In 1958, Barnowsky's hairline was starting to recede and he was brushing his hair straight back. This gave him a pronounced "widow's peak". In this respect he differed from all of the FBI’s sketches of the hijacker, which depicted a parting on the left.

But sometime in the 1980s, the second stewardess appeared in an episode of Unsolved Mysteries on the hijacking of Flight 305. The producers commissioned a police artist to make a new sketch of the hijacker, corresponding to the stewardess's recollections. This sketch, as shown below, depicted a "widow's peak". The stewardess said of the sketch: "that's it".
Fred Barnowsky, FS1980s & KK5-1.png(left) Fred Barnowsky in 1958; image credit: Fresno Bee
(center) sketch of hijacker by police artist Malin Coleman, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, for second stewardess, 1988, in Unsolved Mysteries; image credit: Malin Coleman / Unsolved Mysteries
(right) Image KK5-1 (of which second stewardess told FBI on August 4, 1972: "that's him, except for the hair and ears"; ... She explained that the person depicted in that particular photo closely resembled the man; however, the ears of the hijacker did not protrude as far from the head and she felt that the hair line should be somewhat lower than that on the man depicted on photo KK5-1.); with hairline from 1980s sketch; image credit: FBI< with my additional graphics.
 
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dfs346 said:
sketch of hijacker by police artist for second stewardess, 1980s;
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Oh, c’mon - the event was in 1971! There’s no credibility here. This is worse than the BS pics of the supposed Amelia Earhart a few years ago.
 
Here are four screenshots from the documentary film Flying Men, Flying Machines, produced by John Wilheim Productions for Air America around 1970. It shows the Boeing 727C operated by CIA front company Southern Air Transport for air drop and jump tests at Takhli, Thailand, probably in May 1968. One of the jumpers was Fred Barnowski.

The screenshots show that for these tests, the ventral airstair was removed completely. The jumpers slid down a smooth metal ramp, using a static line for immediate deployment of the parachute. In this respect, the egress was different from that of the hijacker of Flight 305.

AA FMFM jump series.png
Image credit: John Wilheim Productions / Air America.
 
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Here's an extract from Fred Barnowsky's obituary in the Daily Inter Lake of Kalispell, Montana.

080719 Fred A. Barnowsky, 85.png
 
Dan Gryder pretty much solved this mystery completely. Watch his two videos on the subject. Pretty hard to refute the physical evidence he gathered and the personal interviews with the family and the FBI investigator.

Like him or not, the evidence he presents on this subject is overwhelming.
 
Back in November 2022, I posted an article on my GoodReads/Amazon platform, regarding “the man in the woolly hat” (https://www.goodreads.com/author_bl...oper-and-flight-305-the-man-in-the-woolly-hat).

The essence of the story was that on October 21, 1972, LA Magazine published a photograph of a man who claimed to be the hijacker of the Flight 305. In the photograph, he was wearing dark sunglasses, and a knitted multi-colored cap which completely covered his hair (if he had any) and his forehead. The man was later convicted as a fraudster. I think that sometime early in 1972, the FBI obtained a copy of that or a similar photograph. In April 1972, they showed their copy to the second stewardess of Flight 305. She found a profound resemblance to the hijacker.

Whatever resemblance she saw, it could only be in the nose and lower face.

It occurred to me to combine the lower face of “the man in the woolly hat” with the forehead and hairline of the police sketch from 1988. The initial result is below: and for comparison, I have included Fred Barnowsky as he appeared in 1958.

580506 Fred Barnowsky & Part76 p163.png
(Left) Fred Barnowsky in 1958, from Fresno Bee; (center and right) two alternative composites of "the man in the woolly hat" with the hairline and upper face of the sketch prepared in 1988 for the second stewardess; image credits: LA Magazine, Malin Coleman/Unsolved Mysteries.
 
dfs346 said:
Back in November 2022, I posted an article on my GoodReads/Amazon platform, regarding “the man in the woolly hat” (https://www.goodreads.com/author_bl...oper-and-flight-305-the-man-in-the-woolly-hat).

The essence of the story was that on October 21, 1972, LA Magazine published a photograph of a man who claimed to be the hijacker of the Flight 305. In the photograph, he was wearing dark sunglasses, and a knitted multi-colored cap which completely covered his hair (if he had any) and his forehead. The man was later convicted as a fraudster. I think that sometime early in 1972, the FBI obtained a copy of that or a similar photograph. In April 1972, they showed their copy to the second stewardess of Flight 305. She found a profound resemblance to the hijacker.

Whatever resemblance she saw, it could only be in the nose and lower face.

It occurred to me to combine the lower face of “the man in the woolly hat” with the forehead and hairline of the police sketch from 1988. The initial result is below: and for comparison, I have included Fred Barnowsky as he appeared in 1958.

View attachment 133612
(Left) Fred Barnowsky in 1958, from Fresno Bee; (center and right) two alternative composites of "the man in the woolly hat" with the hairline and upper face of the sketch prepared in 1988 for the second stewardess; image credits: LA Magazine, Malin Coleman/Unsolved Mysteries.
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Do you have a question with all of this? What are you looking to get out of from posting this thread? I don't see a question or even a suggestion for discussion anywhere, are you just trying to update us on your own personal investigation? Basically, what's your point with all these posts?
 
The doctored pics look nothing alike. Whatever point you think you’re making isn’t being made.
 
RussR said:
Do you have a question with all of this? What are you looking to get out of from posting this thread? I don't see a question or even a suggestion for discussion anywhere, are you just trying to update us on your own personal investigation? Basically, what's your point with all these posts?
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My best guess is that spy rings use online discussion of DB Cooper, Amelia Earhart, and MH 370 to send secret messages.
 
As a mathematician and private pilot with some experience of parachuting, for me the most interesting aspects of the Norjak case were the aeronautical, navigational and meteorological data. What was the flight path? When and where did the hijacker jump? What was the wind speed and direction during his descent? Where did he land?

Conversely, given the paucity of reliable data, the identity of the hijacker did not seem like a productive area of investigation.

However the FBI’s recent release shines the spotlight on Fred Barnowsky: a man who had undoubtedly jumped from the ventral airstair of a Boeing 727, and had done so on behalf of the CIA.

I would like to invite the views and comments of members of this forum, as to whether any of the composite images, that I have presented above, bears any resemblance to Fred Barnowsky, as he would have appeared on November 24, 1971, aged forty-eight.
 
Lndwarrior said:
Dan Gryder pretty much solved this mystery completely. Watch his two videos on the subject. Pretty hard to refute the physical evidence he gathered and the personal interviews with the family and the FBI investigator.

Like him or not, the evidence he presents on this subject is overwhelming.
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So I don’t have to watch the videos, what was Gryder’s conclusion about D. B. Cooper’s real name?
 
Half Fast said:
The doctored pics look nothing alike. Whatever point you think you’re making isn’t being made.
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That one version looks like him

Did anyone figure out the financial situation for this guy?

I’ve known two uh agency guys and one literally turned off house power to change a light bulb and the other would definitely do a db cooper type stunt for a case of Dr Pepper.

Count me in for believing
 
Gryder likes McCoy, and has a problem with the FBI, according to comments on utube. I still didn't watch the videos.
 
Palmpilot said:
Richard Floyd McCoy, who was convicted of a similar hijacking that took place about five months later.

www.fbi.gov

Richard Floyd McCoy, Jr. | Federal Bureau of Investigation

In 1972, a man hijacked an United Airlines flight and parachuted from the plane over Utah with ransom money.
www.fbi.gov www.fbi.gov
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Lol. So Gryder's big "revelation" is that it was the guy who was accused in someone else's book three decades ago and who was the FBI's number one suspect?
 
By far the most unique features of the event were the jump from a commercial airliner and rough terrain landing at night.

So yeah, if you find someone who has documented skills in both tasks, that automatically puts them on the short list of viable suspects.

Personally I think any sort of appearance-based investigation is so unreliable as to be pointless.
 
Was he also an experienced parachute packer? Just asking because I think anybody with enough brains to get away with it for this long would have been smart enough to not trust the parachutes he was given, opened, inspected, and repacked it himself.
 
Flatiowa said:
Was he also an experienced parachute packer? Just asking because I think anybody with enough brains to get away with it for this long would have been smart enough to not trust the parachutes he was given, opened, inspected, and repacked it himself.
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He precluded that possibility by demanding 4 parachutes. The police had to assume he intended to force some of the crew to jump with him.
 
Lindberg said:
Lol. So Gryder's big "revelation" is that it was the guy who was accused in someone else's book three decades ago and who was the FBI's number one suspect?
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I don't have time to watch the entire four-hour description of his investigation, but in skipping through it, there seems to be a lot more to it than that.


 
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Gryder's DB Cooper investigation was discussed here a few years ago in this thread:

www.pilotsofamerica.com

What REALLY Happened to D.B. Cooper

I saw him at a party with JFK Jr. recently. :dunno: JFK Jr is back according to some very smart people.
www.pilotsofamerica.com www.pilotsofamerica.com

Although that video is now unavailable, it's possible that its content is included in the two videos I linked above. That thread also has a link to a book that Gryder apparently used as one of his sources.
 
Randomskylane said:
I’ve known two uh agency guys and one literally turned off house power to change a light bulb and the other would definitely do a db cooper type stunt for a case of Dr Pepper.
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I've found that most crazy people say they worked for the CIA, or some other clandestine organization. Or they are just meth heads. I don't know if I would take eccentricity as a sign of being a legitimate former employee.
 
Flatiowa said:
Was he also an experienced parachute packer? Just asking because I think anybody with enough brains to get away with it for this long would have been smart enough to not trust the parachutes he was given, opened, inspected, and repacked it himself.
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A friend packed his parachutes lives on the Desert Aire Airport.
 
35 AoA said:
I've found that most crazy people say they worked for the CIA, or some other clandestine organization. Or they are just meth heads. I don't know if I would take eccentricity as a sign of being a legitimate former employee.
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I've known and worked with many actual CIA employees, including very close personal friends who have done things you think only happen in movies.
All of them are extremely stable and focused people. Mental issues and poor judgement are a huge liability in high risk positions, as well as a security threat. The government expends significant resources on psychological screening, background investigations, and monitoring.
 
Ed Haywood said:
The government expends significant resources on psychological screening, background investigations, and monitoring.
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Yes, they do.

My sister applied for the FBI, CIA and the Navy after graduating from college. After a thorough back ground check it was a big no from all due to dope smoking and, uhh.... lets say ultra liberal activities of the time while in college. (mid 70s)

A church member was former FBI. He told me because of my sister I would be turned down as well even though I in no way followed in my sisters footsteps. Not that I had plans to join the FBI or others, but I was a good kid. Yes, really.
 
Zeldman said:
Yes, they do.

My sister applied for the FBI, CIA and the Navy after graduating from college. After a thorough back ground check it was a big no from all due to dope smoking and, uhh.... lets say ultra liberal activities of the time while in college. (mid 70s)

A church member was former FBI. He told me because of my sister I would be turned down as well even though I in no way followed in my sisters footsteps. Not that I had plans to join the FBI or others, but I was a good kid. Yes, really.
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It's a bit more nuanced than that. One of the two close friends that I had in CIA ground branch is quite open about his pot smoking habit in college. I have a friend in FBI counter-intel with similar history. Of course both had long periods of military service post-college with no drug use. But the 3 letter agencies are understanding of youthful indiscretions as long as other red flags are not present.
 
I've got a friend who, until his retirement a year or two ago, had a very high clearance. He was in private industry, but doing government contract work. About all I ever learned of it was that it was focussed on how to keep bad people overseas from doing bad things with cell phones.

Anyway, he was more open about the screening process for the clearance, and said the two main areas of focus seemed to be financial security (for example, how likely is this person to sell out to pay off big gambling debts) and secrets that might make the person a target of blackmail. He said you could have some pretty unsavory things in your past...or even your present...as long as you were open about it, but if they found you were hiding something from friends, family, and your employer it was a big deal.
 
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