Ten Thousand Feet in the Air | Criminal Podcast | Forensic Files

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

On the afternoon of June 23rd, 1972, Martin McNally walked into the St. Louis airport with a wig, a sawed-off rifle, and a plan.

Special thanks to Danny Wicentowski. Learn more at the Riverfront Times: “The Final Flight of Martin McNally.”

Music in the episode “Pickers” by Blue Dot Sessions “In the Back Room” by Blue Dot Sessions “Downhill Racer” by Blue Dot Sessions “Flashing Runner” by Blue Dot Sessions “White Limit” by Blue Dot Sessions “White Filament” by Blue Dot Sessions “Focus” by A. A. Aalto

Criminal is a show about people who’ve done wrong, been wronged, or gotten caught somewhere in the middle. Hosted by Phoebe Judge. Part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

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Episode 100 originally published 10/5/2018 https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-100-ten-thousand-feet-in-the-air-10-5-18

Brief Summary

Martin McNally attempted to replicate the D.B. Cooper hijacking, leading to chaos and his eventual arrest.

Key points

The Daring Hijack. A man named Dan Cooper hijacks a plane, demanding money and parachutes.
Martin's Inspiration. Hearing about D.B. Cooper inspires Martin McNally to attempt his own hijacking.
A Close Call. A businessman drives towards the hijacked plane, almost causing a disaster.
The Jump. Martin jumps from the plane but loses the money bag during his descent.
The Aftermath. Martin's escape leads him to a police chief who unknowingly gives him a ride.
Martin's Arrest. Almost six days after hijacking, Martin is arrested by the FBI.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

You'd better look at that note, I have a bomb.

The moment the hijacker reveals his intentions.

0:44WatchJan 17, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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