Cooper’s demands were specific and considered. He wanted $200,000 in cash and four parachutes—two main, or back, parachutes and two reserve, or front, parachutes. He wanted a fuel truck standing by in Seattle so the plane could refuel after landing. He communicated these demands through Schaffner to the cockpit. Captain William Scott, First Officer William Rataczak, and flight engineer Harold Anderson were the flight crew. Scott contacted the airline’s ground operations, which contacted company officials.
Northwest Orient’s president, Donald Nyrop, made the decision that the airline would comply. This was the policy the industry had adopted for hijackings: cooperate with demands to protect lives.
While the airline scrambled to gather the ransom, Flight 305 circled Puget Sound for about two hours. Below, Seattle First National Bank assembled 10,000 twenty-dollar bills. The FBI, already involved, photographed all of them on microfilm. Each bill’s serial number was recorded. The vast majority of the bills had serial numbers beginning with the letter L, indicating they had been issued by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. The cash weighed approximately 19 pounds.
The parachutes came from a local skydiving school. Cooper had specified he did not want military parachutes. He received two functional main chutes and two reserve chutes. One of the reserve chutes was later identified as a non-functional training device—a dummy chute with its canopy sewn shut so it could not deploy. It is not known whether Cooper was aware of this.
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## Sea-Tac: The Exchange
Flight 305 landed at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport at approximately 5:46 in the evening.