The Mystery of D.B. Cooper

Introduction

D.B. Cooper remains the only unsolved hijacking of all time, and the chances of it being solved continue to get slimmer and slimmer. On November 24, 1971, he hijacked Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305, flying from Portland, Oregon, to Seattle, Washington, and managed to escape with $200,000 in cash ($1.5 million in 2024). He has never been seen again, but many citizens across the United States have independently attempted to solve the Cooper case-- and many claim they have successfully tracked him down.

The HIJACKING

On November 24, 1971, a man carrying a black briefcase and a brown paper bag bought a one-way ticket with cash to fly on Flight 305, a Boeing 727-100, to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport from Portland, Oregon. He listed his name as Dan Cooper, and boarded the flight, sitting in the last row of the plane. At this time, there was almost no airport security, allowing Cooper's bomb to avoid detection.

Shortly after takeoff from Portland at 2:50 pm PST, he handed a note to flight attendant Florence Schaffner, who ignored it and dropped it in her bag without looking at it. At this moment, he leaned over to her and advised her to open it, mentioning that he had a bomb in his briefcase. She opened the note and obeyed what it said-- to sit next to Cooper. When she sat down, she requested to see the bomb, and Cooper opened his briefcase, revealing eight red cylinders that resembled dynamite that were wired to a small battery that she assumed to be the bomb.

He then gave his demands, stating that he needed $200,000 in real American cash in a knapsack by 5:00 pm and two sets of parachutes. Requesting two sets would ensure that the FBI would give him functioning equipment, as it implied that he was taking a hostage with him. Schaffner wrote the demands down and brought them to the cockpit, where the pilot relayed the information to the ground crew and air traffic control in Washington. Cooper also demanded that the money be brought onto the plane immediately upon arrival, and all passengers would be released afterwards.

This information was given to the local police and FBI, who took about two hours to get the money and parachutes together while the airplane circled the airport. Passengers were informed that there was a 'minor mechanical difficulty' until the plane landed.

When the flight landed in Seattle at 5:46 pm, Northwest Orient Airlines' Seattle manager, Al Lee, brought the money onboard. After thoroughly inspecting the money, Cooper permitted the passengers to deplane, but the plane was parked on a runway away from the terminal, as per Cooper's instructions to the pilot.

After a refueling delay, Cooper allowed two flight attendants to leave the plane, but required the other four crew members (the pilot, co-pilot, flight engineer, and a flight attendant) onboard with him. He instructed them to fly the plane at the minimum speed possible (without stalling) to Mexico City at a 10,000 foot altitude, with the landing gear deployed, an unpressurized cabin, and lowered wing flaps. He also told them to keep the aft door open with the stairs extended, but they claimed that it would be unsafe. He did not argue with them, and dismissively stated that he would open it mid-flight. However, the first officer informed him that his demands would require a second refueling stop somewhere in between Seattle and Mexico City, and they agreed on a stop in Reno, Nevada.

At 7:40 pm, the flight took off from Seattle, and he told the flight attendant to open up the stairs and go into the cockpit. He instructed her not to return, and put down her fears of exploding by confirming that he would either take his bomb with him or defuse it before he left. Then, he leaped out of the plane somewhere over the suburbs of Portland, never to be seen again.

Following his leap from the aft stairs, the crew did not know if he was still onboard the plane. After requesting if they could pull up the aft stairs, with no reply from Cooper, they landed in Reno with the stairs open. The FBI was waiting at the scene, where they surrounded the plane but did not board in fears of him still being onboard. The captain quickly searched and confirmed that Cooper was gone.

THE PSEUDONYM

When the Cooper case was released to the public in an FBI press release, reporter James Long accidentally labeled Dan Cooper as D.B. Cooper. United Press International reporter Clyde Jabin repeated this mistake, and the public thought D.B. Cooper sounded cooler for a master criminal than Dan Cooper, and the name stuck.

EVIDENCE

The only evidence discovered were 66 fingerprints around the cabin, his black clip-on tie, the tie clip, a strand of his hair, and eight cigarette butts. Both the hair and the cigarette butts were later destroyed before analysis. After a thorough analysis on the tie, researchers found that Cooper most likely worked at an aeronautical engineering plant like Boeing. Pure titanium, bismuth, antimony, cerium, strontium sulfide, aluminum, and more metals were found on the tie, strongly suggesting that he worked at Boeing because many of those metals, especially pure titanium, are only found at places like aircraft development plants. Also, multiple eyewitnesses were able to give the FBI a general idea of what Cooper looked like in a sketch.

The Search

The FBI conducted an extensive search of multiple counties across Washington and Oregon, as the exact point when he leaped off was unknown. They investigated into multiple people who pointed out possible suspects, but none of them were confirmed to be the real D.B. Cooper. On July 8, 2016, the FBI officially announced that the active search was over, but numerous US citizens have taken matters into their own hands-- and many of them believe that they have located D.B. Cooper.

A BREAKTHROUGH IN THE CASE-- OR NOT

On February 10, 1980, a young boy named Brian Ingram stumbled across three packets of cash on the banks of the Columbia River near Vancouver, Canada, and the FBI confirmed them to be three packets of the $200,000 ransom D.B. Cooper stole. Since the bills had deteriorated in a round way, it suggested that the bills were washed there by the river, not buried, but there were many contradictions to this. The rubber bands were still intact, and if the bills had entered the water in 1971, they would have disintegrated by 1980. More geological analysis found that the cash had entered the water during springtime, which would have been several months after the hijacking. The physical evidence did not match the geological evidence, making the bills' true history unknown.

THEORIES

The main FBI theory seems to be that he died after leaping out of the plane. He had no previous parachuting experience and was jumping into a dangerous wooded area in extremely cold conditions with no accomplice, and this would also explain the bills found upstream in the Columbia River-- he dropped them into the river when he died.

Others think he survived the jump but died of hypothermia after falling into the Columbia River.

However, many citizens believe that he is still alive and hiding out somewhere until his death. Maybe, he survived the fall and escaped but died later on-- if he was still alive, as per his looks in 1971, he would be around 90-95 years-old by now.

CONCLUSION

We will probably never find out what truly happened that cold winter night, but everyone knows the story of D.B. Cooper as the only unsolved hijacking of an airplane in history. Cooper could have died after leaping out of the plane, or he could be alive right now, thinking about his amazing success that day-- who knows?

Credit to the FBI for cover image