D. B. Cooper and Flight 305: an FBI perspective

On August 10, 2022 I was fortunate to have a telephone conversation with a former senior FBI agent who was familiar with the case of Flight 305, and who kindly responded to a long list of technical questions that I had prepared. Among his perspectives were the following:

The Portland to Seattle segment:
* The FBI interviewed every passenger (of course, other than the hijacker).
* The FBI has no testimony (other than that of the Northwest Airlines ticket agent) that characterized the hijacker as having the appearance of a blue-collar worker.
* The junior stewardess made several statements to the FBI, and generally characterized the hijacker as an executive type.
* The FBI generally did not view the hijacker as an executive type, but more as a "middle-class worker".

The Seattle to Reno segment:
* The FBI has no technical data on the segment, other than the "Air Force map", which the FBI received from the US Air Force with no accompanying data or methodology;
* The FBI has no audio recordings of any kind, and no transcripts of radio communications other than what has been published.
* The FBI has no technical or communications data from the chase planes.
* The FBI has no reason to question the statements of Northwest's Director of Flight Operations (Technical) that Flight 305 was on autopilot throughout most of this segment.

The sled test flight:
* The FBI did not receive a technical report on this flight, and has no technical data, audio recordings or communications transcripts from the flight.
* The 8mm film from the chase plane still exists.

The tests at Takhli, Thailand:
* The FBI did not and could not interview the employees of Southern Air Transport or Air America who were involved in these tests.

Military records:
* The FBI did obtain the service histories of suspects with military records, some of which are still classified.