Flight 305 finally landed at 5:45 p.m., close to 3 hours after it had taken off. The passengers now realized what was happening. Refueling began at 5:50 p.m. via fuel trucks. By 7 p.m. Cooper was getting irritated at the delays. Finally, the money and parachutes arrived. He released the passengers. The flight crew remained aboard. Of the stewardesses, only Tina Mucklow remained.

     One demand had not been met. He had asked that the plane take off with the rear staircase lowered— a unique feature of the Boeing 727. The flight crew refused. It would be crunched up by the angle of the aircraft as it lifted from the runway. Cooper relented.

   At 7:37 p.m. Flight 305 took off, with Dan Cooper as its only passenger. He ordered Tina Mucklow to go forward to the cockpit. “Go in there and stay there. And on your way there pull that curtain between the first class section and economy. And don’t come back.”

   She obeyed, but angled a view between the curtains. The swarthy, cool skyjacker was wrapping the money satchel around his waist with cords he had cut from one pair of the parachutes.

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