Season 07 Episode 22: Jumping into Legend (Pt.1 of 2)

sunglasses and carrying a briefcase. When he finally got to the front of the line, the man asked for a one way ticket to Seattle. The man was in luck there was a seat on board a flight going that very afternoon. The man handed over the twenty dollars for the ticket, then breezily strolled from the desk to his departure gate. Later, on board Northwest orient Airlines flight three O five to Seattle, the man squeezed through to the

back of the Boeing seven two seven. He settled into an aisle seat in row eighteen, placed his briefcase on the seat beside him, and lit a cigarette. At four thirty five p m. The plane took off from the rumway and eased up into the steadily darkening sky. When the plane leveled out, twenty three year old flight attendant Florence Shaffner began making her way down the aisle with the drink's cart. She'd clocked the man at the back early on, thinking it a little odd that he hadn't

removed his sunglasses. When she finally got down to him, he asked politely for a bourbon and soda. Despite her young age, Florence was an experienced flight attendant. She'd been doing the job long enough that not much phazed her, especially when it came to attention from male passengers. Sex appeal was, after all, part of the job description for stewardesses,

as they used to be known. In addition to staying young, slim, and single, attendants were expected to appear available and interest it to flatter the egos of male passengers who made passes at them. For Florence, it was by and large one of the worst parts of the job, so when soon after serving him the drink, the smartly dressed man handed her a note, it was all she could do to not roll her eyes in front of him. What

would it be this time? She thought a phone number, a marriage proposal, perhaps, Florence forced a smile and took the note, but made sure not to open it, better not to put them both in the awkward position of her having to respond to it there and then. But when she turned to walk away, the man spoke, miss He said, with an unnervingly insistent tone, you'd better take a look at that note. Florence paused for a moment,

then grudgingly opened it. The words were written in neat, elegant capitals, and yet they seemed to be swimming in front of her eyes. Her mind couldn't quite process them. I have a bomb in my briefcase, they read. I would use it if necessary. I want you to sit next to me. You are being hijacked. You're listening to unexplained, and I'm Richard McLean Smith. Florence felt unsteady on her feet. The world around her seemed hazy and far away, and so did the figure of the man in front of her.

She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, hoping that when she opened them she'd find herself safe at home in bed. She'd had nightmares before about being confronted by a hijacker, and not unreasonably, America was in the midst of a period now referred to as the Golden Age of hijacking, and cases had been rising steadily over the past three years, but she never really believed it would

happen to her. When Florence opened her eyes again, the man was still there, looking expectantly at her, with one hand on his briefcase, his eyes inscrutable behind the sunglasses. I want you to sit next to me, he said, echoing the words in his note. Though every instinct was telling he her to run and scream, Florence forced her legs to move and eased herself into the seat beside him. Once she was sat down, she couldn't take her eyes

off the briefcase. Almost without thinking, she found herself asking the man if she could see the bomb. The man opened the briefcase and turned it to show her the inside. Florence felt a surge of adrenaline when she caught sight of the tangled mass of wires and cylinders, all connected to a large central battery. Time seemed to slow down. She imagined the bomb detonating, flames, consuming the entire plane

in seconds, its charred scraps falling to earth. She thought of her parents in Arkansas, hearing about it all on the evening news, and for the first time in her life, she thought about dying. Just then, another flight attendant, twenty two year old Tina Mucklow, came heading toward them down the aisle. Florence could only imagine what she thought at the sight of her sitting down with a passenger like this. It was almost a relief when Tina finally reached them

and Florence was able to hand her the note. As Tina read it, Florence could visibly see the blood drain from her face. Then the man showed her the bomb too, taking care to point out just how it worked and where the detonator switch was. He spoke calmly and politely, keeping his voice low. The flight wasn't full, and they were at the back of the plane. No one else

on board had any idea what was going on. The man then told Tina to inform the pilots that the plane was being hijacked and to deliver a precise set of instructions after detailing them. Tina nodded silently in response. She was just about to head off when the man added one more thing, Oh, he said, and no funny business or I'll do the job. Tina picked up the intercom and called the cockpit on an emergency signal. She told the pilots that the plane was being hijacked, then

relayed the man's instructions. They were a little strange under the circumstances. Instead of re routing the plane to Cuba, as many politically motivated hijackers did at the time, the man wanted them to stick to their predetermined flight path, but when they reached Seattle, he wanted three things waiting for him on the ground. A fuel truck ready to refuel the plane, four parachutes, and two hundred thousand US dollars in cash, roughly one and a half million into

day's money. So long as his demands were met, he said he would let all of the passengers go. Pilot Captain Scott radioed air traffic control on the ground in Washington and explained what was going on. He requested the plane be put in a holding pattern to give the authorities time to respond. Scott was directed to fly in circles over Puget Sound, a vast estuary which connects Sattle to the Pacific Ocean. Tina knew there was only one reason why they would do this, ground control wanted them

over water in case the plane exploded. Meanwhile, back in row eighteen, the man in the suit and sunglasses ordered another drink from Florence. He seemed in good spirits, paying for his two dollar bourbon and soda with a twenty dollar bill and insisting that Florence keep the change almost one hundred and thirty dollars by today's standards. Not that

Florence took any heed of that. She was too busy watching the man's every move as he leant back into his seat, one hand holding his drink, the other resting on his rigged briefcase. With little else to do, she and Tina focused on damage control. They had no way of knowing how destructive the man's bomb would be, so they resolved to try and put as much space between it and the passengers as possible to avoid causing alarm.

They told passengers that there was a minor mechanical fault with the plane and asked everybody to move forwards into first class. But as the passengers began moving moving around the cabin, the man in the sunglasses became agitated. He demanded to know what was happening, What was taking so long and why the plane was in a holding pattern. The twenty two year old Tina did her best to keep him calm as she explained it was going to take time for the ground staff to have everything he

wanted ready before they landed. If anything, they were just doing what he'd asked. In the meantime, she'd give him any information he wanted to know when she had it. Thankfully, it seemed to work. Sadly for Tina, it worked too well. The man demanded she stay by his side for the rest of the flight. To keep him company. Over the next hour or so, Tina told him about her childhood in rural Pennsylvania and about her current hometown of Minneapolis.

In Minnesota. Seemed genuinely interested, but when she asked him the same question in return, he clammed up and refused to answer. She asked him why he'd picked Northwest Orient Airlines as his target. Did he have a grudge against them, she wondered. The man seemed amused by this. I don't have a grudge against your airline, he said, I just have a grudge. One upside to the golden age of hijacking was that most major airports had a solid plan

in place for when it happened. As soon as Captain Scott alerted air traffic control to what was going on, a vast chain of people on the ground sprung into action. Local police and the FBI were informed within moments, and an urgent call was placed to Donald Nyroup, the president of Northwest Orrient Airlines. Without hesitating, Nyrop authorized payment of the ransom. Two hundred thousand dollars was a lot of money, but it was nothing compared to the consequences of that

bomb being detonated. Loss of life aside, the value of the company was unlikely to ever recover should anything like that occur on board. Further to the request of the money, the hijacker had some very specific demands. He wanted ten thousand unmarked twenty dollar bills with non sequential serial numbers. This way, it would be harder to trace the money

when he spent it unknown to him. However, when the money was duly delivered from a local branch of Seattle First National Bank, the FBI took microfilm photographs of the bills so that they'd have a record of each serial number. Surprisingly, getting hold of the four parachutes on such short notice, was more of a problem than the cash. An Air Force base close to the airport offered to provide them, but the man was adamant that they be civilian parachutes

and not military wants. By then, it was after five pm on Thanksgiving Eve and all local businesses selling outdoor gear were closed for the holiday, but Seattle police eventually got through to the owner of a local skydiving school, who was able to deliver what they needed. While scrambling to comply with the man's demands, the authorities were also trying to work out its game plan. Based on the fact that he'd asked for four parachutes, they assumed that

likely be a potential hostage situation. Finally, with everything figured out on the ground, air traffic control told Captain Scott that he was cleared to land. He relayed this message to Tina, who relaid it to the enigmatic man in the suit and sunglasses. Having circled the city for around two hours, Flight three oh five finally landed at Seattle Tacoma Airport and taxied to a remote and well lit

area of the tarmac. Per the hijacker's instructions, no vehicles or personnel were allowed to come anywhere near the aircraft. As she felt the wheels touched the ground, Tina allowed herself a brief moment of relief. For the past hour, she had been doing her best to stay focused on the task at hand and not think about her own survival. But her task was far from over. She'd done such a good job of keeping the hijacker calm that now she was the only person on board who he trusted,

and he had plans for her. Tina felt the rush of the cool evening air on her face as the aircraft door opened and filled her with a sudden, overwhelming urge to run. But Tina was not going to be leaving any time soon. So far, the hijacker had only agreed to release the passengers, and he was now sitting with his finger on the trigger mechanism of the bomb. Should anyone get any funny ideas. Slowly, Tina descended the stairs toward the tarmac, where a lone figure in a

high vized vest was waiting for her. Al Lee, the airline's Seattle based operations manager, had been tasked with delivering the cash and the parachutes. Are you okay? He asked, looking at Tina with concern. She nodded quickly, forcing back tears as she took the supplies. Then she turned around and walked back towards the plane. The bag of money alone weighed around twenty pounds, and it was a struggle to wrestle it and the four parachutes up the stairs.

But once she'd managed it and the hijacker had confirmed the supplies were correct, he gave the nod to release the passengers. True to his word, I allowed Or thirty six to get off the plane along with Florence, but not Tina, and not the three pilots in the cockpit for them. The ordeal was only just beginning. It shouldn't take this long, muttered the man in the suit as he waited for the plane to be filled up with fuel,

his eyes darting suspiciously around the tarmac. Then finally, the refueling was complete and Tina began the process of retracting the stairs, but the man suddenly stopped her. He wanted the stairs to stay down. Tina didn't understand. The plane couldn't take off with the stairs deployed. The hijacker's requests seemed to be getting stranger. It scared her. Eventually, the man agreed to a compromise. The stairs could be retracted while the plane took off, so long as they could

be lowered again once they were airborne. To make this possible, however, meant the rear door of the plane had to be kept open throughout the flight, and so with the back door wide open, the plane took off back into the night. It was an eerie sensation to feel the wind whipping past as they gathered speed, and the sound of the plane's engines through the open door was deafening. Hunched in the very back of the darkened cabin, Tina had never

felt more alone or afraid. She had no idea where they were going or what the man had planned for her next. She couldn't take her eyes off the four parachutes now stacked up next to him. Right then, she had no idea if she'd make it back to solid ground alive. Once they were back in the air, the hijacker told the pilots to chart a southward path to

Mexico City. As Ever, his instructions were specific. They were to keep the plane at an altitude of below ten thousand feet and fly at a steady speed of just under two hundred knots. They did as they were told. Meanwhile, two fighter jets were stealthily following the plane, tracking its every move from a safe distance over the roaring of the engine. Tina tried to talk to the hijacker again and asked him what his plan was. She just couldn't

take her mind off those damn parachutes. Clearly he intended to jump from the plane, but why did he need four parachutes? But the man seemed not to hear her, or perhaps he heard perfectly. Either way, he said nothing. Instead, he spent the next twenty minutes chainsmoking cigarettes, with Tina having to light each one for him because he still had a finger pressed against the trigger of the bomb. After stubbing out his final cigarette, the man got to his feet and told Tina to escort him to the

back door and help him lower the stairs. Tina turned to look at the rear door and froze. The sight of it filled her with a primal terror. It was like looking into a void. Annoyed by her hesitation, the man repeated the request. Eventually, Tina forced herself to respond she would help him do it, but only if she could go to the cockpit and get some rope to tie herself to a seat while she did it. The hijacker refused, clearly still suspicious that she and the flight

crew were plotting something. But Tina wouldn't budge fine, said the man. He would do it himself. After getting Tina to tell him what he needed to do, he directed her to go to the cockpit, closed the door behind her, and not come back no matter what happened. She glanced down at the briefcase with its ominous tangle of wires and batteries. The idea of it sitting back here unattended was terrifying. She begged him, will you please take the

bomb with you? The man reassured her that he'd either take it with him or disarm it before he jumped, and she had no choice but to believe him. As Tina walked away up the aisle, she turned back for a moment and caught one final glimpse of the hijacker tying the twenty pound bag of money around his waist, and then she turned back and made a dash for the cockpit. Around eight p m. A warning light blinked on in the cockpit, indicating that the rear stairs had

been deployed. About ten minutes later, the tail of the plane suddenly pitched upwards, forcing the pilots to take corrective action. To Tina and the pilots, it seemed like the hijacker must have jumped, but there was no way to be sure, and none of them wanted to take the risk of leaving the cockpit in case he was still on board. Shortly before eleven PM, the plane reached the airspace above Reno, Nevada,

where it was due to refuel. Tina tried to reach the suited man through the cabin intercom, telling him they were about to land and he needed to raise the stairs, but there was no reply. She tried again and again as they descended, but the stairs remained Against the odds. Flight three oh five touched down safely in Reno with the stairs still deployed. When Tina and the pilots finally emerged from the cockpit, they found the cabin completely empty.

The hijacker was gone, and so too was the bomb, the two hundred thousand dollars and two out of the four parachutes. After the shell shot flight crew were finally able to leave, an FBI team descended on the plane sweeping it from end to end. The man in the sunglasses had been careful to cover his tracks. He'd taken great effort not to leave any evidence behind, including even

the note he'd initially written to Florence. The only traces remaining of him were a pile of cigarette butts and a black clip on tie he probably forgot to take with him. Even though two jets had been following the flight closely, nobody saw the man jump. Over the days to come, the authorities attempted to piece together what his

final moments on board must have looked like. After sending Tina to the cockpit and tying the bag of cash around his waist, the man is thought to have strapped one parachute to his front and another to his back, perhaps fearing the possibility that one might not open. Then, after picking up his deadly briefcase, he lowered the stairs beneath him. All he would have seen was a thick layer of cloud blanketed by a total darkness. Taking the windchill into account, it would have been at least forty

degrees below zero. Then, probably somewhere over the Cascade Mountains. He jumped, and the authorities had nothing except one thing, the name the man had given at the airport when he brought his ticket to Seattle. Dan Cooper, you'd been listening to Unexplained Season seven, episode twenty two, Jumping into Legend Part one. The second and final part will be released next Friday, May twenty fourth. This episode was written by Emma Dibton and produced by Richard mc lean smith.

Unexplained is an Avy Club Productions podcast created by Richard mc clan smith. All other elements of the podcast, including the music, are also produced by me Richard mc lean smith. Unexplained. The book and audiobook, with stories never before featured on the show, is now available to buy world wide. You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones and other bookstores.

Please subscribe to and rate the show wherever you get your podcasts, and feel free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation of your own you'd like to share. You can find out more at Unexplained podcast dot com and reaches on line through Twitter at Unexplained Pod and Facebook at Facebook dot com. Forward Slash Unexplained.