The Story Of DB Cooper

It's the stuff of legends. A single man with a supposed weapon, his skills, and an ridiculous escape plan makes off with $200,000 and is never seen again. It happened November 24th 1971. A middle aged man dressed in a business suit paid $20 for a ticket on Northwest Orient flight 305. Back in those days they didn't check for ID nor did they check baggage. Hijacking wasn't even heard of in those days. The man boarded the flight in Portland Oregon. On his ticket was his name Dan Cooper. He approached the Stewardress who was walking by shortly after the flight had taken and gave her a note. The note said, although no one knows for sure because he took the note back, "I have a bomb in my briefcase and I am prepared to use it". Coopers demands were $200,000 in cash and four parachutes. FBI and police scrambled to collect the money from 10,000 $20 bills from several local area banks. Every serial was recorded on microfilm.

When the plane landed in Seattle, authorities delivered the 21 pounds of cash in a white cotton sack. He then lets the passengers go but keeps all the crew members aboard the flight. Cooper keeps the flight attendant back there with him. Cooper then orders the pilots to take off and fly to Mexico. He tells the pilots to fly no higher than 10,000 feet and to keep the flaps at 15 degrees, which he seems to know is as slow as the plane could go and as low as it could fly enabling him to jump safely. At 8:12 PM, Cooper opens the back door of the Boeing 727 and jumped out into the cold and rainy Northwestern night. Had he landed in the trees he would have survived but if he landed in water he would have died. Some people think that he landed in water and that someday they will find his skeleton. Others believe that he made it out alive. The debate continues to this day. But the authorities were not about to take any chances.

They launched a massive manhunt after the weather cleared. Their search was located 45 miles north of Portland Oregon in a remote mountainous area. Over 600 National Guardsmen were deployed for the effort. But nothing is ever found. No parachute, no body, no clothes, no bones, no shoes, not even a belt buckle. After the hijacking occurred the FBI was interviewing a man they thought was possible suspect named DB Cooper. It turned out it wasn't but somehow the newscasters got him confused with Dan Cooper and the legend of DB Cooper was born. DB Cooper had vanished without a trace. But in 1980, almost nine years after the hijacking a fresh clue. On February 10th 1980 a boy named Brian Ingram was digging in the sand with a stick along the banks of the Columbia River. He uncovered what appeared to be some old moldy 20 dollar bills.

Authorities confirmed that the nearly $6,000 was part of Coopers haul but what did the find mean? Where was Cooper and the rest of the cash? And just how did the money find its way onto the banks of the Columbia river? Once again the trail went cold. Since 1971 the FBI has investigated more than 1100 serious suspects without making a single arrest. Meanwhile, Cooper the felon becomes Cooper the folk hero. Here is a man who decides he is going to do this one extraordinary crime and either make a lot of money doing it or die trying. Most people these days like to think he made it out alive and hope he enjoyed his retirement. To this day the incident remains the only unsolved hijacking in American history.