From my vague recollections of childhood TV watching in that late 70s and early 80s, there seems to have been a minor industry built around making documentaries about B.D. Cooper.
It kept going in the 90s with Hangin' with Mr. Cooper.
The brother of a friend and colleague hijacked a plane to Cuba. http://skyjackeroftheday.tumblr.com/post/50651913894/33-alben-truitt
Didn't turn out well.
I don't think hijacking is the driven by the same impulse as shooting up a school. The latter is IMO a glorified suicide, whereas the former is more a kind of tantrum. I can kind of see how there's a common thread of frustration running through both, but the suicide bit seems to me to loom large enough to make it a difference in kind rather than degree.
That's a great book. Good on whoever recommended it to you!
Anyhow, the networks effects fascinate me. First hijacker goes to Cuba? Everybody else goes to Cuba for like a decade! Somebody demands money and then parachutes out? Like a half-dozen other people try the same thing in short order!
I know! Whoever recommended it to me should be very, very pleased with themself.
very, very pleased with themself.
Hmm. As a fan of the singular "they" I somehow think that I still would say "themselves", but maybe not. I wonder what I actually say. I'll have to pay attention to it sometime when I'm not paying attention to it.
The god of red squiggly lines didn't like it, either.
Thanks for remembering this, heebie!
I kept intending to post about it, but it's hard for me to write when I'm actually trying to say something.
Anyway, spoiler alert! There is a certain amount of suspense about the outcome of the hijacking that is central to the book, and I have to give it away to talk about this.
My questions center on the co-hijacker Cathy Kerkow, and to what extent Koerner is making stuff up when he writes about the hijacking from her perspective. The key thing is that she disappeared and has never been found, never went on trial for the hijacking, and as far as I can determine there is no record of her telling anybody about her experience of the hijacking. So, as far as I can tell, the only possible source for a lot of this is her co-hijacker, William Holder-- and he doesn't seem all that reliable to me -- not that he would deliberately lie, so much as that he seems pretty crazy.
And there is the very odd extended passage in which Koerner imagines that Kerkow might be be married and living someehere in rural France -- and this gave me a theory which I find amusing if not entirely believable -- that Koerner actually did track down Kerkow, and she talked him on the condition that he wouldn't give her away.
that Koerner actually did track down Kerkow, and she talked him on the condition that he wouldn't give her away.
I love this idea.
Anyway, I have an idea - based on the website from 3 and the "ask me anything" feature, I bet the Koerner is receptive to just being straight-up asked. I'm going to do so. Maybe he'd say hi in this thread.
There was a fun Leverage episode about DB Cooper.
Oh goddamnit. The "ASK ME ANTHING!" box requires a tumblr account. Maybe my first question can address that annoyingness.
Newsradio had the definitive take on D.B. Cooper.
Also, in retrospect, the definitive take on the subjects of Dave Foley, Phil Hartman, Andy Dick not being terribly depressing.
I don't think 17 is written in English.
I (used to) know K/oerner pretty well and could likely get him to respond to questions anyone has, though I think he'd probably happily respond to an email anyway.
13: But even if I'm right, he has to deny it!
18: just add "themself" after the list of names.
Heebie! Have you ever seen Dog Day Afternoon? I bet you'd like it.
I emailed him. Maybe he'll stop by and wink affirmatively really hard.
Also: Dave Foley - I was musing the other day what a big crush I have on him. Just now I looked him up and it turns out that he's growing older, grayer and fatter than in my mind. I still love you, Dave.
22: I haven't! Thanks for the rec.
24: don't listen to the WTF with Marc Maron with him. It's enormously depressing. Also, avoid the bulk of his work from 2002-2008 or so, especially Uwe Boll's Postal, although he does get naked in that one.
I wouldn't ask Koerner.
We are being watched you know, and our travel records are available, and if I were to speak to a hijacker hidden in Uruguay on condition she be protected, I would never admit anywhere.
Ask Koerner often enough, and people will begin to believe he knows where she is, even if he remains silent.
Oh, does he take a turn for the worst? That's too bad.
I just read the most depressing fucking book - Miles From Nowhere, by Nami Mun - and halfway through I was thinking "Can't I just donate money to an organization that helps homeless teens and stop reading this godforsaken book?" It was for book club, and I'm gleefully eager to be the asshole who poops in the punchbowl because I get the feeling that other people were captivated by the beauty, etc. The writing was in fact really amazingly good, but jesus christ is it depressing.
Odd synchronicity with this thread over at LGM:
27: You're right, bob! I've already spoken too much!
I wouldn't ask Koerner.
Too late!
Oh, does he take a turn for the worst? That's too bad.
Bad divorce; bitterness, with a tinge of the kind of resentment that leads to men's rights activism; financial obligation to take any shitty, soul-destroying project that will have him. Things seem to have perked up for him lately, though, for whatever reason.
Boo. I'll stick with 90s Foley.
We are being watched you know
Great. Now you tell me.
Koerner responded quite promptly and said he'd try to stop by when he's got a few minutes to spare. What a nice guy.
30: well, do we care if hijackers get tracked down and put in prison? I'd rather like that, to be honest.
I watched the PBS documentary on Sundance and Butch Cassidy and felt a little sad when they got hunted down and killed in Argentina. So yes.
You can read this (about Dave Foley) the next time you're feeling good about life, Heebie. Alternately, the next time you're feeling bad about your life choices and want an example other than Lindsay Lohan of someone rich and successful who made worse ones.
36: She's a very likeable hijacker.
From a post 9/11 perspective, there was something sweet and innocent about a time when people might threaten to blow up a plane to get attention or further their cause, but they wouldn't just blow it up without warning, just because they could.
I think Mac from IASIP and Foley of the 90s have a similar charm, which is what I like about them both. It's the big, dimpled, bright-eyed smile, while delivering something absolutely heinous, that I love.
From a post 9/11 perspective, there was something sweet and innocent about a time when people might threaten to blow up a plane to get attention or further their cause, but they wouldn't just blow it up without warning, just because they could.
What? 9/11 was precisely about blowing up planes to get attention and further a cause. It wasn't "just because they could." Or is the essential difference you're talking about that back then, none of them would have gone through with it if the demands hadn't been fulfilled? (Is that actually true?)
(Is that actually true?)
I'd think probably not, given that there was some level of escalation even though essentially all of their demands were being fulfilled.
41: My point was that they crashed the planes trying to kill as many people as possible without making any demands. Contrast this with 1960s incident in which Palestinean terrorist group triumphantly blew up the plane after first getting everybody off the plane.
From a post 9/11 perspective, there was something sweet and innocent about a time when people might threaten to blow up a plane to get attention or further their cause, but they wouldn't just blow it up without warning, just because they could.
I am trying to be charitable and read this as something other than "I think no one ever blew up planes without warning before 9/11", but it's really difficult.
And hijackers killed hostages before 9/11 as well, don't forget.
44: No need to be charitable! I know this wasn't historically accurate. I'm actually very aware of this incident -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lod_Airport_Massacre--
as I was in Israel at the time, and my father was friends with one of the people killed.
||
So, in Copenhagen for work
Herring with pork fat on rye bread. Plus beer. Turns out to be pretty great.
>
I read this recently because I remembe sifu (at least, I think it was sifu) raving about it. My absolute favourite thing? The insane levels of booze consumed on those hijacked flights. They drank all the liquor! All the champagne! Oh noes!
I do think that I came away with the general feeling that these were more innocent hijackings, even if there was occasional violence. Compared to Lockerbie, 9/11, and other international events a la upthread, the hijackers getting on with a fake weapon and demanding to be taken to Cuba left me thinking, "How quaint." (I feel that way about a lot of the 1970s, which is really rather at odds with the end of the Vietnam War/radical protest/etc. I blame nostalgia shows.)
I mean, that was sort of the whole tone, though, right? (Also, yes, it was me who was talking about it. Also heebie read it because of me. Me, me, me!)
49: Did That 70s Show ever do a Very Special Hijacking episode?
46: But they're hopeless at ice hockey! Great sandwiches, yes.
50: It definitely was the tone. (And yes, I remember your discussion of the book, which totally led to me purchasing the book.)
Compared to Lockerbie, 9/11, and other international events a la upthread, the hijackers getting on with a fake weapon and demanding to be taken to Cuba left me thinking, "How quaint." (I feel that way about a lot of the 1970s, which is really rather at odds with the end of the Vietnam War/radical protest/etc. I blame nostalgia shows.)
Even Dog Day Afternoon was quaint. If a remake ever gets made, I can't imagine it ending with less than ten people being shot and killed.
Dog Day Afternoon, starring RoboCop as Sauron.
Not that many people died in Airheads (1994).
Even Dog Day Afternoon was quaint. If a remake ever gets made, I can't imagine it ending with less than ten people being shot and killed.
I'm pretty sure that a Dog Day Afternoon remake today would be extensively re-worked to incorporate zombies into the story somehow.
The idea of the 70s as a simpler, more innocent time is maybe the greatest testimony ever to the power of nostalgia to make anything anywhere seem innocent no matter what (alternate exemplar; the 1940s: a time of innocence, also not an uncommon theme). Terrorists, crime, and porno theaters everywhere! Total urban decay and riots!
I guess riots were more of a 60s thing. A more innocent time.
They're all angry, disenfranchised ordinary people who want fame and attention, and have no exit strategy whatsoever.
I have a really dumb question: is there a way of using virtual reality or some kind of technology to give people the fame/attention without the attendant killing/maiming?
Anyhow, I distinctly remember bumping into a hooker with a switchblade on Hollywood boulevard while going to see a matinee screening of The Empire Strikes Back in 1980. Meanwhile, somewhere in the United States, JP Stormcrow was drinking in a fern bar with other yuppies.
You think we're cynical now; someday this will seem innocent.
60: Some would-be hijackers now get their jollies trolling the internet.
My thanks to Heebie-jeebie for posting about my book, and for inviting me to contribute a few words in response to the entertaining suggestion that I might know Cathy Kerkow's current whereabouts.
Oh, how I wish I knew where Ms. Kerkow was hanging her hat these days! I did my best to track her down, but I can't say I had significantly more luck than the FBI. I did come across a few scraps of gossip that I chose not to put in the book, due to my inability to find adequate sourcing. But putting in that information would not have altered my basic conclusions about her fate.
A French edition of the book is forthcoming, so perhaps that will shake loose some additional information. I certainly fantasize about getting a 3 a.m. phone call from the now 62-year-old Cathy, in which she reveals all about her life on the run.
Fleshing out a character you haven't had a chance to interview is always a major challenge in narrative nonfiction. Holder was a key source regarding Cathy's tale, of course, but so too were other folks who knew her well--or, in some instances, simply observed her during their time aboard Western Airlines Flight 701. I did the best I could to bring her story to life while staying true to my commitment to historical accuracy.
Thanks a million for conversing about a project that I poured so much of my heart and soul into creating. It means the world to see folks responding to this story.
Thanks for stopping by, Brendan! I adored your book, and have been actively recommending it all over the place.
64: Thanks, Brendan! That was very convincing!
63: This comment section is going to Havana or the blog gets it!
67 made me laugh, but then I realized he could be serious.
Ok, Klug. We'll meet all your demands.
68: I want an immediate end to the acronym "STEM". I want it dragged out onto the blog and shot. I want to see its brains.
I'm reading this blog in flip flops and shorts so I can hit the beach as soon as it gets to Havana.
70: I just changed too!
69 would seem to require someone with skill at ASCII art.
Thanks a million for conversing about a project that I poured so much of my heart and soul into creating.
I really enjoyed your book, and have been recommending it often and widely. Personally, it struck a note with me as my parents are the same ages as Kerkow & Holder, and my father had a similarly disenchanting experience in Vietnam (didn't they all) and moved in similar circles farther north in Santa Barbara. Fortunately, no hijackings occurred, but I had some great conversations about the era after reading the book.
The idea of the 70s as a simpler, more innocent time is maybe the greatest testimony ever to the power of nostalgia to make anything anywhere seem innocent no matter what
I know! I mean, I know better, I really do, I had endless books on the 70s on my comps list (ok, 4) and yet, I persist in thinking of it as That Seventies Show.
It's sad to hear that Foley may be dickish in real life, but he's great as a guest star on In Plain Sight.
The '70s saw some incredible mass liberation movements. Extremely messy and with very mixed success but far more militant and activist than the stereotype of wacky clothes and malaise.
The book was indeed awesome, not least for the sense of non-specific extremism.