How do you jump out of a 600 mph jet at 37,000 feet wearing a business suit and survive? That’s 8000 feet higher than Mount Everest.
Just sit down and quietly eat your peas
I’m no aviation expert, but I really doubt that the plane would be at altitude 37000. If it was a Seattle to Portland flight the distance is only 170 road miles. I would guess they didn’t get much higher than 17000 and would have been on a descent from that when he bailed, since it would have been less than 30 air miles from Portland.
He had them fly at about 200 mph and below 2500 feet. also, the plane had a door in the ear of the plane he jumped from.
Just sit down and quietly eat your peas
He wasn’t at 37,000 ft. The jet was flying below 10,000 ft. And it was going at a much lower speed.
The hijacker then used the flight attendant’s cabin phone to give the cockpit personnel instructions on how and where to fly. He ordered an altitude not to exceed 10,000 feet, with wing flaps set at 15 degrees and airspeed of no more than 150 knots. Cooper warned the pilot he was wearing a wrist altimeter to monitor the altitude.
Larger jets could not have maintained such a low airspeed. But Cooper obviously knew that the lightweight 727 (just 50 tons without fuel) could fly as slowly as 80 knots in the dense air at 10,000 feet. Even with a full load of fuel the jet would have no problem maintaining a speed of 100 knots.
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/criminal_mind/scams/DB_Cooper/5.html
He didn’t he had them drop.
Jump clubs make “DB Cooper” jumps all the time from the same type plane,too.
He jumped from less than 10,000 feet at less than 200 mph.
As a result of this hijacking, aircraft installed an interlock to prevent the rear stairs from being lowered in flight.