Posted on Sat, Oct. 29, 2011 Cincinnati-area man recalls '72 hijack scene By DAN SEWELL The capture of an American fugitive Instead of a drawn-out affair, "it was in has a northern Kentucky just A-B-C-D," said Cooper. "They got retiree reliving the day when he put on the money out to the airport too-small swim trunks to help deliver an expeditiously." old suitcase bulging with $1 million to FBI agents kept up radio hijackers he said had just made chilling conversations with the cockpit, and threats of violence. Delta operations had a separate "Talk about a blast from past," said frequency to communicate with the Bernard "Buster" Cooper, a retired Delta captain and cockpit. The Air Lines employee who lives in communications sounded friendly, Florence, Ky. Cooper said, but then there was a lull. Suddenly he and the others in Delta After fugitive George Wright was operations heard a hijacker's voice arrested last month in a seaside village rising in a startling outburst that has where he lived under a new identity, stayed with Cooper: "If you don't hurry Cooper started hearing from relatives up and get me the million dollars, I'm wondering whether it was the same man going to start throwing some 'mother- from the 1972 hijacking scene in which (expletive)-ing' heads out the 'mother- Cooper became an indelible figure. (expletive)-ing' door!" Cooper was a 27-year-old Delta Air "Everybody took a step back and Lines ramp supervisor in Miami the day said, Whoa! We've got a planeload of Wright - who had escaped two years passengers and a captain with a gun to earlier from a prison while his head," Cooper said. "The FBI agent serving time for a 1962 - started talking to him again and calmed allegedly was among Black Liberation him down." Army militants that hijacked a Delta flight from Detroit to Miami. Hijackings to When the money arrived, an FBI Cuba weren't unusual then, so FBI agent asked if Cooper could drive the agents soon swarmed into place at the mobile passenger stairway to the plane Miami International Airport while Cooper with an agent to deliver the money and, and other Delta managers headed to they hoped, rescue the passengers their operations center, he recalled in a when they were released. telephone interview Friday. Cooper said he didn't hesitate and They had the pilot land the plane wasn't thinking about the possible and park at the far reaches of the airport danger. Employees pulled an old and soon learned the hijackers wanted suitcase out of lost-and-found and $1 million ransom for the 86 stuffed it with the cash; Cooper worried passengers. That wasn't such a big it might pop open. challenge; a local bank kept cash set The hijackers demanded that the aside for such a crisis, Cooper said. men delivering the cash wear nothing but swimming shorts so they couldn't easily conceal weapons. Cooper said The plane was fueled and took off someone ran to the airport men's store for , then on to Algeria. and bought two pairs. His was a couple "I went back to operations; just got of sizes too small. back into the swing of things for the rest He drove the gate toward the plane, of the day," Cooper said. "From the concerned when he saw the FBI agent perspective of an airline employee, as with him had a snub-nosed revolver. far as safety, it couldn't have gone any Cooper urged him to keep it down and smoother. It was all well-coordinated." out of sight, which he did. A station Cooper, who moved to northern wagon with FBI agents and a Delta Kentucky in 1986 as Delta was official tailed them, he said. expanding its Cincinnati regional hub, The plane's crew dropped down an retired in 2001. He was stunned to hear emergency rope, which was used to pull about Wright's capture - "I couldn't the suitcase into the plane, Cooper said. believe they were still looking for him" - Soon after, they got word from the and then was surprised when The hijackers that the passengers could Kentucky Enquirer contacted him at his leave the plane. Florence home for his first discussion of the incident in years. A bus rolled out. Cooper pushed the stairway to the plane and watched the Wright's associates were arrested passengers coming out. He had wanted and convicted in France in 1976. He has to retrieve their luggage, but the FBI been released to his home in Portugal said there wasn't time. under electronic monitoring and is contesting to the United "I was thinking about all these States. people in Miami without any of their clothes, but I guess that was secondary," Cooper said. © 2011 Miami Herald Media Company. All Rights Reserved. http://www.miamiherald.com Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/10/29/v-print/2478084/cincinnati-area- man-recalls-72.html#ixzz1caOGaHWX