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D. B. Cooper, also known as Dan Cooper, was an unidentified man who hijacked Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305, a
Boeing 727 The Boeing 727 is an American Narrow-body aircraft, narrow-body airliner that was developed and produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. After the heavier Boeing 707, 707 quad-jet was introduced in 1958, Boeing addressed the demand for shorter ...
aircraft, in United States airspace on November 24, 1971. During the flight from
Portland, Oregon Portland ( ) is the List of cities in Oregon, most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon, located in the Pacific Northwest region. Situated close to northwest Oregon at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, ...
, to
Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...
, Washington, Cooper told a flight attendant he had a bomb, and demanded $200,000 in
ransom Ransom refers to the practice of holding a prisoner or item to extort money or property to secure their release. It also refers to the sum of money paid by the other party to secure a captive's freedom. When ransom means "payment", the word ...
() and four parachutes upon landing in Seattle. After releasing the passengers in Seattle, Cooper instructed the flight crew to refuel the aircraft and begin a second flight to
Mexico City Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...
, with a refueling stop in
Reno, Nevada Reno ( ) is a city in the northwest section of the U.S. state of Nevada, along the Nevada–California border. It is the county seat and most populous city of Washoe County, Nevada, Washoe County. Sitting in the High Eastern Sierra foothills, ...
. About thirty minutes after taking off from Seattle, Cooper opened the aircraft's aft door, deployed the
staircase A stairwell or stair room is a room in a building where a stair is located, and is used to connect walkways between floors so that one can move in height. Collectively, a set of stairs and a stairwell is referred to as a staircase or stairway ...
, and
parachute A parachute is a device designed to slow an object's descent through an atmosphere by creating Drag (physics), drag or aerodynamic Lift (force), lift. It is primarily used to safely support people exiting aircraft at height, but also serves va ...
d into the night over southwestern Washington. Cooper's true identity and whereabouts have never been determined conclusively. In 1980, a small portion of the ransom money was found along the riverbanks of the
Columbia River The Columbia River (Upper Chinook language, Upper Chinook: ' or '; Sahaptin language, Sahaptin: ''Nch’i-Wàna'' or ''Nchi wana''; Sinixt dialect'' '') is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river headwater ...
near
Vancouver, Washington Vancouver ( ) is a city on the north bank of the Columbia River in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington, located in Clark County, Washington, Clark County. Founded in 1825 and incorporated in 1857, Vancouver had a population of 190, ...
. The discovery of the money renewed public interest in the mystery but yielded no additional information about Cooper's identity or fate, and the remaining money was never recovered. For forty-five years after the hijacking, the
Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...
(FBI) maintained an active investigation and built an extensive case file but ultimately did not reach any definitive conclusions. The crime remains the only documented unsolved case of air piracy in the history of commercial aviation. The FBI speculates Cooper did not survive his jump for several reasons: the inclement weather, Cooper's lack of proper
skydiving Parachuting and skydiving are methods of descending from a high point in an atmosphere to the ground or ocean surface with the aid of gravity, involving the control of speed during the descent using a parachute or multiple parachutes. For hu ...
equipment, the forested terrain into which he jumped, his lack of detailed knowledge of his landing area and the disappearance of the remaining ransom money, suggesting it was never spent. In July 2016, the FBI officially suspended active investigation of the case, although reporters, enthusiasts, professional investigators and amateur sleuths continue to pursue numerous theories for Cooper's identity, success and fate. Cooper's hijacking — and several imitators during the next year — immediately prompted major upgrades to security measures for airports and
commercial aviation Commercial aviation is the part of civil aviation that involves operating aircraft for remuneration or hire, as opposed to private aviation. Definition Commercial aviation is not a rigorously defined category. All commercial air transport and ae ...
.
Metal detector A metal detector is an instrument that detects the nearby presence of metal. Metal detectors are useful for finding metal objects on the surface, underground, and under water. A metal detector consists of a control box, an adjustable shaft, and ...
s were installed at airports, baggage inspection became mandatory and passengers who paid cash for tickets on the day of departure were selected for additional scrutiny. Boeing 727s were
retrofitted Retrofitting is the addition of new technology or features to older systems. Retrofits can happen for a number of reasons, for example with big capital expenditures like naval vessels, military equipment or manufacturing plants, businesses or go ...
with eponymous " Cooper vanes", designed to prevent the aft staircase from being lowered in-flight. By 1973, aircraft hijacking incidents had decreased, as the new security measures dissuaded would-be hijackers whose only motive was money.


Hijacking

On
Thanksgiving Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in October and November in the United States, Canada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries like Brazil and Germany. It is also observed in the Australian territory ...
Eve, November 24, 1971, a man carrying a black attaché case approached the flight counter for Northwest Orient Airlines at Portland International Airport. Using cash, the man bought a one-way ticket on , a thirty-minute trip north to Seattle–Tacoma International Airport (Sea-Tac). On his ticket, the man listed his name as "Dan Cooper". Eyewitnesses described Cooper as a white male in his mid-40s, with dark hair and brown eyes, wearing a black or brown business suit, a white shirt, a thin black tie, a black raincoat and brown shoes. Carrying a briefcase and a brown paper bag, Cooper boarded Flight 305, a Boeing 727-100 ( FAA registration N467US). Cooper took seat 18-E in the last row and ordered a drink, a bourbon and
7-Up 7 Up (stylized as 7UP worldwide) or Seven Up is an American brand of Lemon-lime drink, lemon-lime–flavored non-caffeinated soft drink. The brand and formula are owned by Keurig Dr Pepper, although the beverage is internationally distributed ...
from a
flight attendant A flight attendant is a member of the aircrew whose primary responsibility is ensure the safety of passengers in the cabin of an aircraft across all stages of flight. Their secondary duty is to see to the comfort of passengers. Flight attenda ...
. With a crew of six (consisting of
Captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader or highest rank officer of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police depa ...
William A. Scott, First Officer William "Bill" J. Rataczak,
Flight Engineer A flight engineer (FE), also sometimes called an air engineer, is a member of an aircraft's flight crew who is responsible for monitoring and operating its complex aircraft systems. In the early era of aviation, the position was sometimes referr ...
Harold E. Anderson and flight attendants Alice Hancock, Tina Mucklow and Florence Schaffner) and thirty-six passengers aboard, including Cooper, Flight 305 left Portland on-schedule at 2:50 pm PST. Shortly after takeoff, Cooper handed a note to flight attendant Schaffner, who was sitting in the
jump seat A jump seat (sometimes spelled jumpseat) is an auxiliary seat in an automobile, train or aircraft, typically folding or spring-loaded to collapse out of the way when not used. The term originated in the United States c. 1860 for a movable car ...
at the rear of the airplane, directly behind Cooper. Assuming the note was a lonely businessman's telephone number, Schaffner dropped the note unopened into her purse. Cooper then leaned toward her and whispered, "Miss, you'd better look at that note. I have a bomb." Schaffner opened the note. In neat, all-capital letters printed with a felt-tip pen, Cooper had written, "Miss—I have a bomb in my briefcase and want you to sit by me." Schaffner returned the note to Cooper, sat down as he requested, and asked quietly to see the bomb. He opened his briefcase, and she saw two rows of four red cylinders, which she assumed were
dynamite Dynamite is an explosive made of nitroglycerin, sorbents (such as powdered shells or clay), and Stabilizer (chemistry), stabilizers. It was invented by the Swedish people, Swedish chemist and engineer Alfred Nobel in Geesthacht, Northern German ...
. Attached to the cylinders were a wire and a large, cylindrical battery, which resembled a bomb. Cooper closed the briefcase and told Schaffner his demands. She wrote a note with Cooper's demands, brought it to the cockpit and informed the flight crew of the situation. Captain Scott directed her to remain in the cockpit for the remainder of the flight and take notes of events as they happened. He then relayed to Northwest flight operations in
Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...
the hijacker's demands: " ooperrequests $200,000 in a knapsack by 5:00 pm. He wants two front
parachute A parachute is a device designed to slow an object's descent through an atmosphere by creating Drag (physics), drag or aerodynamic Lift (force), lift. It is primarily used to safely support people exiting aircraft at height, but also serves va ...
s, two back parachutes. He wants the money in negotiable American currency." By requesting two sets of parachutes, Cooper implied he planned to take a hostage with him, thereby discouraging authorities from supplying non-functional equipment. With Schaffner in the cockpit, flight attendant Mucklow sat next to Cooper to act as a liaison between him and the flight crew. Cooper then made additional demands: upon landing at Sea-Tac, fuel trucks were to meet the plane and all passengers were to remain seated while Mucklow brought the money aboard. He said he would release the passengers after he had the money. The last items brought aboard would be the four parachutes. Scott informed Sea–Tac
air traffic control Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based air traffic controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through a given section of controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled air ...
of the situation, who contacted the
Seattle Police Department The Seattle Police Department (SPD) is the principal police force, law enforcement agency of the city of Seattle, Washington, United States. It is responsible for the entire city except for the campus of the University of Washington (which is und ...
(SPD) and the
Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...
(FBI). The passengers were told their arrival in
Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...
would be delayed because of a "minor mechanical difficulty". Donald Nyrop, the president of Northwest at the time, authorized payment of the
ransom Ransom refers to the practice of holding a prisoner or item to extort money or property to secure their release. It also refers to the sum of money paid by the other party to secure a captive's freedom. When ransom means "payment", the word ...
and ordered all employees to cooperate with the hijacker and comply with his demands. For approximately two hours, Flight 305 circled
Puget Sound Puget Sound ( ; ) is a complex estuary, estuarine system of interconnected Marine habitat, marine waterways and basins located on the northwest coast of the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington. As a part of the Salish Sea, the sound ...
to give the SPD and the FBI sufficient time to assemble Cooper's ransom money and parachutes, and to mobilize emergency personnel. During the flight from Portland to Seattle, Cooper demanded Mucklow remain by his side at all times. She later said Cooper appeared familiar with the local terrain; while looking out the window, he remarked, "Looks like
Tacoma Tacoma ( ) is the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. A port city, it is situated along Washington's Puget Sound, southwest of Seattle, southwest of Bellevue, northeast of the state capital, Olympia, northwest of Mount ...
down there", as the aircraft flew above it. When told the parachutes were coming from McChord Air Force Base, Cooper correctly noted McChord was only a twenty-minute drive from Sea-Tac. She later described the hijacker's demeanor: " ooperwas not nervous. He seemed rather nice and he was not cruel or nasty." While the airplane circled Seattle, Mucklow chatted with Cooper and asked why he chose Northwest Airlines to hijack. He laughed and replied, "It's not because I have a grudge against your airlines, it's just because I have a grudge," then explained the flight simply suited his needs. He asked where she was from; she answered she was originally from
Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...
, but was living in
Minneapolis Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...
at the time. Cooper responded that Minnesota was "very nice country." She asked where he was from, but he became upset and refused to answer. He asked if she smoked and offered her a cigarette. She replied she had quit, but accepted the cigarette. FBI records note Cooper spoke briefly to an unidentified passenger while the airplane maintained its holding pattern over Seattle. In his interview with FBI agents, passenger George Labissoniere stated he visited the restroom directly behind Cooper on several occasions. After one visit, Labissoniere said the path to his seat was blocked by a passenger wearing a cowboy hat, questioning Mucklow about the supposed mechanical problem delaying them. Labissoniere said Cooper was initially amused by the interaction, then became irritated and told the man to return to his seat, but "the cowboy" ignored Cooper and continued to question Mucklow. Labissoniere claimed he eventually persuaded "the cowboy" to return to his seat. Mucklow's version of the interaction differed from Labissoniere's. She said a passenger approached her and asked for a sports magazine to read because he was bored. She and the passenger moved to an area directly behind Cooper, where they both looked for magazines. The passenger took a copy of ''
The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...
'' and returned to his seat. When Mucklow returned to sit with Cooper, he said, "If that is a sky marshal, I don't want any more of that", but she reassured him there were no sky marshals on the flight. Despite his brief interaction with Cooper, "the cowboy" was not interviewed by the FBI and was never identified. The $200,000 ransom was received from Seattle First National Bank in a bag weighing approximately . The money—10,000 unmarked $20 bills, most of which had serial numbers beginning with "L" (indicating issuance by the
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (informally referred to as the San Francisco Fed) is the Federal Reserve, federal bank for the twelfth district in the United States. The twelfth district is made up of nine western U.S. state, states— ...
)—was photographed on
microfilm A microform is a scaled-down reproduction of a document, typically either photographic film or paper, made for the purposes of transmission, storage, reading, and printing. Microform images are commonly reduced to about 4% or of the original d ...
by the FBI. Seattle police obtained the two front (reserve) parachutes from a local
skydiving Parachuting and skydiving are methods of descending from a high point in an atmosphere to the ground or ocean surface with the aid of gravity, involving the control of speed during the descent using a parachute or multiple parachutes. For hu ...
school and the two back (main) parachutes from a local stunt pilot.


Passengers released

Around 5:24 PST, Scott was informed the parachutes had been delivered to Sea-Tac and notified Cooper they would be landing soon. At 5:46 PST, Flight 305 landed at Sea-Tac. With Cooper's permission, Scott parked the aircraft on a partially-lit runway, away from the main terminal. Cooper demanded only one representative of the airline approach the plane with the parachutes and money, and the only entrance and exit would be through the aircraft's front door via mobile stairs. Northwest's Seattle operations manager, Al Lee, was designated to be the courier. To avoid the possibility Cooper might mistake Lee's airline uniform for a law enforcement officer, he changed into civilian clothes for the task. With the passengers remaining seated, a ground crew attached a mobile stair. Per Cooper's directive, Mucklow exited the aircraft through the front door and retrieved the ransom money. When she returned, she carried the money bag past the seated passengers to Cooper in the last row. Cooper then agreed to release the passengers. As they debarked, Cooper inspected the money. In an attempt to break the tension, Mucklow jokingly asked Cooper if she could have some of it. Cooper readily agreed and handed her a packet of bills, but she immediately returned the money and explained accepting gratuities was against company policy. She said Cooper had tried to tip her and the other two flight attendants earlier in the flight with money from his pocket, but they had each declined, citing the policy. With the passengers safely debarked, only Cooper and the six crew members remained aboard. In accordance with Cooper's demands, Mucklow made three trips outside the aircraft to retrieve the parachutes, which she brought to him in the rear of the plane. While Mucklow brought aboard the parachutes, Schaffner asked Cooper if she could retrieve her purse, stored in a compartment behind his seat. Cooper agreed and told her, "I won't bite you." Flight attendant Hancock then asked Cooper if the flight attendants could leave, to which he replied, "Whatever you girls would like," so Hancock and Schaffner debarked. When Mucklow brought the final parachute to Cooper, she gave him printed instructions for using the parachutes, but Cooper said he didn't need them. A problem with the refueling process caused a delay, so a second truck and then a third were brought to the aircraft to complete the refueling. During the delay, Mucklow said Cooper complained the money was delivered in a cloth bag instead of a knapsack as he had directed, and he now had to improvise a new way to transport the money. Using a pocket knife, he cut the canopy from one of the reserve parachutes, and stuffed some of the money into the empty parachute bag. An FAA official requested a face-to-face meeting with Cooper aboard the aircraft, but Cooper denied the request. Cooper became impatient, saying, "This shouldn't take so long," and, "Let's get this show on the road." He then gave the cockpit crew his
flight plan Flight plans are documents filed by a aviator, pilot or flight dispatcher with the local Air Navigation Service Provider (e.g., the Federal Aviation Administration, FAA in the United States) prior to departure which indicate the plane's planned ...
and directives: a southeast course toward
Mexico City Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...
at the minimum
airspeed In aviation, airspeed is the speed of an aircraft relative to the air it is flying through (which itself is usually moving relative to the ground due to wind). In contrast, the ground speed is the speed of an aircraft with respect to the sur ...
possible without stalling the aircraft—approximately —at a maximum altitude. Cooper also specified the
landing gear Landing gear is the undercarriage of an aircraft or spacecraft that is used for taxiing, takeoff or landing. For aircraft, it is generally needed for all three of these. It was also formerly called ''alighting gear'' by some manufacturers, s ...
must remain deployed, the wing flaps must be lowered 15 degrees and the cabin must remain unpressurized. First Officer Rataczak informed Cooper that the configuration limited the aircraft's range to about , so a second refueling would be necessary before entering Mexico. Cooper and the crew discussed options, and agreed on Reno–Tahoe International Airport as the refueling stop. Cooper further directed the aircraft take off with the rear exit door open and its
airstair An airstair is a set of steps built into an aircraft so that passengers may board and alight the aircraft. The stairs are often built into a clamshell-style door on the aircraft. Airstairs eliminate the need for passengers to use a Ground s ...
extended. Northwest officials objected for reasons of safety, but Cooper countered by saying, "It can be done, do it," but then did not insist and said he would lower the staircase once they were airborne. Cooper demanded Mucklow remain aboard to assist the operation.


Back in the air

Around 7:40 pm, Flight 305 took off, with only Cooper, Mucklow, Scott, Rataczak and Flight Engineer Anderson aboard. Two F-106 fighters from McChord Air Force Base and a
Lockheed T-33 The Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star (or T-Bird) is an American subsonic jet trainer. It was produced by Lockheed and made its first flight in 1948. The T-33 was developed from the Lockheed P-80/F-80 starting as TP-80C/TF-80C in development, then d ...
trainer—diverted from an unrelated
Air National Guard The Air National Guard (ANG), also known as the Air Guard, is a Reserve components of the United States Armed Forces, federal military reserve force of the United States Air Force, as well as the air militia (United States), militia of each U.S. ...
mission—followed the 727. All three jets maintained "S" flight patterns to stay behind the slow-moving 727, and out of Cooper's view. After takeoff, Cooper told Mucklow to lower the aft staircase. She told him and the flight crew she feared being sucked out of the aircraft. The flight crew suggested she come to the cockpit and retrieve an emergency rope with which she could tie herself to a seat. Cooper rejected the suggestion, stating he did not want her going up front or the flight crew coming back to the cabin. She continued to express her fear to him, and asked him to cut some cord from one of the parachutes to create a safety line for her. He said he would lower the stairs himself, instructed her to go to the cockpit, close the curtain partition between the Coach and First Class sections and not return. Before she left, Mucklow begged Cooper, "Please, please take the bomb with you." Cooper responded that he would either disarm it or take it with him. As she walked to the cockpit and turned to close the curtain partition, she saw Cooper standing in the aisle tying what appeared to be the money bag around his waist. From takeoff to when Mucklow entered the cockpit, four to five minutes had elapsed. For the rest of the flight to
Reno Reno ( ) is a city in the northwest section of the U.S. state of Nevada, along the Nevada–California border. It is the county seat and most populous city of Washoe County, Nevada, Washoe County. Sitting in the High Eastern Sierra foothills, ...
, Mucklow remained in the cockpit, and was the last person to see Cooper. Around 8:00 pm, a cockpit warning light flashed, indicating the aft staircase had been deployed. Scott used the plane's
intercom An intercom, also called an intercommunication device, intercommunicator, or interphone, is a stand-alone voice communications system for use within a building, small collection of buildings or portably within a small coverage area, which funct ...
to ask Cooper if he needed assistance, but Cooper's last message was a one-word reply: "No." The crew's ears popped from the drop in air pressure from the stairs being opened. At approximately 8:13 p.m., the aircraft's tail section suddenly pitched upward, forcing the pilots to trim and return the aircraft to level flight. In his interview with the FBI, Rataczak said the sudden upward pitch occurred while the flight was near the suburbs north of Portland. With the aft cabin door open and the staircase deployed, the flight crew remained in the cockpit, unsure if Cooper was still aboard. Mucklow used the intercom to inform Cooper they were approaching Reno and that he needed to raise the stairs so the airplane could land safely. She repeated her requests as the pilots made the final approach to land, but neither Mucklow nor the flight crew received a reply from Cooper. At 11:02 pm, with the aft staircase still deployed, Flight 305 landed at Reno–Tahoe International Airport. FBI agents, state troopers, sheriff's deputies and Reno police established a perimeter around the aircraft but, fearing the hijacker and the bomb were still aboard, did not approach the plane. Scott searched the cabin, confirmed Cooper was no longer aboard and, after a thirty-minute search, an FBI bomb squad declared the cabin safe.


Investigation

In addition to sixty-six latent fingerprints aboard the plane, FBI agents recovered Cooper's black clip-on tie, tie clip and two of the four parachutes, one of which had been opened and had three shroud lines cut from the canopy. FBI agents interviewed eyewitnesses in Portland, Seattle and Reno, and developed a series of composite sketches. Local police and FBI agents immediately began questioning possible suspects. In a rush to meet a deadline, reporter James Long of ''
The Oregon Journal ''The Oregon Journal'' was Portland, Oregon's daily afternoon newspaper from 1902 to 1982. The ''Journal'' was founded in Portland by C. S. "Sam" Jackson, publisher of Pendleton, Oregon's ''East Oregonian'' newspaper, after a group of Portla ...
'' recorded the name "Dan Cooper" as "D. B. Cooper".
United Press International United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20th ce ...
wire service A news agency is an organization that gathers news reports and sells them to subscribing news organizations, such as newspapers, magazines and All-news radio, radio and News broadcasting, television Broadcasting, broadcasters. A news agency ma ...
reporter Clyde Jabin republished Long's error, and as other media sources repeated the error, the hijacker's pseudonym became "D. B. Cooper". Acting on the possibility the hijacker may have used his real name (or the same alias in a previous crime), Portland police discovered and interviewed a Portland citizen named D. B. Cooper. The Portland Cooper had a minor police record, but was quickly eliminated as a suspect. Due to the number of variables and parameters, precisely defining the area to search was difficult. The jet's airspeed estimates varied, the environmental conditions along the flight path varied with the aircraft's location and altitude, and only Cooper knew how long he remained in
free-fall In classical mechanics, free fall is any motion of a body where gravity is the only force acting upon it. A freely falling object may not necessarily be falling down in the vertical direction. If the common definition of the word "fall" is used, ...
before pulling his ripcord. The F-106 pilots neither saw anyone jumping from the airliner, nor did their radar detect a deployed parachute. A black-clad man jumping into the moonless night would be difficult to see, especially given the limited visibility, cloud cover and lack of ground lighting. The T-33 pilots did not make visual contact with the 727. On December 6, 1971, after the incident,
FBI Director The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation is the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), a United States federal law enforcement agency, and is responsible for its day-to-day operations. The FBI director is appointed for a ...
J. Edgar Hoover John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 – May 2, 1972) was an American attorney and law enforcement administrator who served as the fifth and final director of the Bureau of Investigation (BOI) and the first director of the Federal Bureau o ...
approved the use of an Air Force
SR-71 Blackbird The Lockheed SR-71 "Blackbird" is a retired long-range, high-altitude, Mach 3+ strategic reconnaissance aircraft developed and manufactured by the American aerospace company Lockheed Corporation. Its nicknames include " Blackbird" and ...
to retrace and photograph Flight 305's flightpath, and attempt to locate the items Cooper carried during his jump. The SR-71 made five flights to retrace Flight 305's route, but due to poor visibility, the photography attempts were unsuccessful. In an experimental recreation, flying the same aircraft used in the hijacking in the same flight configuration, FBI agents pushed a sled out of the open airstair and were able to reproduce the upward motion of the tail section and brief change in cabin pressure described by the flight crew at 8:13 pm. Initial extrapolations placed Cooper's landing zone within an area on the southernmost outreach of Mount St. Helens, a few miles southeast of Ariel, Washington, near Lake Merwin, an
artificial lake A lake is often a naturally occurring, relatively large and fixed body of water on or near the Earth's surface. It is localized in a basin or interconnected basins surrounded by dry land. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from t ...
formed by a dam on the Lewis River. Search efforts concentrated on Clark and Cowlitz counties, encompassing the terrain immediately south and north of the Lewis River in southwest Washington. FBI agents and sheriff's deputies searched large areas of the largely forested terrain on foot and by helicopter. Door-to-door searches of local farmhouses were also performed. Other search parties ran patrol boats along Lake Merwin and Yale Lake, the reservoir immediately to its east. Neither Cooper nor any of the equipment he presumably carried was found. Using fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters from the Oregon Army National Guard, the FBI coordinated an aerial search along the entire flight path (known as Victor 23 in U.S. aviation terminology, and as "Vector 23" in most Cooper from Seattle to Reno. Although numerous broken treetops and several pieces of plastic and other objects resembling parachute canopies were sighted and investigated, nothing relevant to the hijacking was found. Soon after the spring thaw in early 1972, teams of FBI agents aided by some 200
soldiers A soldier is a person who is a member of an army. A soldier can be a conscripted or volunteer enlisted person, a non-commissioned officer, a warrant officer, or an officer. Etymology The word ''soldier'' derives from the Middle English word ...
from Fort Lewis, along with
United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...
personnel, National Guardsmen, and civilian volunteers, conducted another thorough ground search of Clark and Cowlitz Counties for 18 days in March, and then another 18 days in April. Electronic Explorations Company, a marine-salvage firm, used a
submarine A submarine (often shortened to sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. (It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability.) The term "submarine" is also sometimes used historically or infor ...
to search the depths of Lake Merwin. Two local women stumbled upon a skeleton in an abandoned structure in Clark County; it was later identified as the remains of Barbara Ann Derry, a teenaged girl who had been abducted and murdered several weeks before. Ultimately, the extensive search and recovery operation uncovered no significant material evidence related to the hijacking. Based on early computer projections produced for the FBI, Cooper's drop zone was first estimated to be between Ariel dam to the north and the town of Battle Ground, Washington, to the south. In March 1972, after a joint investigation with Northwest Orient Airlines and the Air Force, the FBI determined Cooper probably jumped over the town of La Center, Washington. In 2019, the FBI released a report detailing the burglary of a grocery store, about three hours after Cooper jumped, near Heisson, Washington. Heisson, an
unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...
, was within the calculated drop zone Northwest Airlines presented to the FBI. In the report, the FBI noted the burglar took only survival items, such as beef jerky and gloves. However, the report notes that the burglar wore "military type boots with a corregated sole", while Cooper was described as wearing slip-on shoes.


Search for ransom money

A month after the hijacking, the FBI distributed lists of the ransom serial numbers to financial institutions,
casino A casino is a facility for gambling. Casinos are often built near or combined with hotels, resorts, restaurants, retail shops, cruise ships, and other tourist attractions. Some casinos also host live entertainment, such as stand-up comedy, conce ...
s, racetracks, businesses with routine transactions involving large amounts of cash, and to law-enforcement agencies around the world. Northwest Orient offered a reward of 15% of the recovered money, to a maximum of $25,000. In early 1972, U.S. Attorney General John N. Mitchell released the serial numbers to the general public. Two men used counterfeit $20 bills printed with Cooper serial numbers to swindle $30,000 from a ''
Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly news magazine based in New York City. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely distributed during the 20th century and has had many notable editors-in-chief. It is currently co-owned by Dev P ...
'' reporter named Karl Fleming in exchange for an interview with a man they falsely claimed was the hijacker. In early 1973, with the ransom money still missing, ''
The Oregon Journal ''The Oregon Journal'' was Portland, Oregon's daily afternoon newspaper from 1902 to 1982. The ''Journal'' was founded in Portland by C. S. "Sam" Jackson, publisher of Pendleton, Oregon's ''East Oregonian'' newspaper, after a group of Portla ...
'' republished the serial numbers and offered $1,000 () to the first person to turn in a ransom bill to the newspaper or any FBI field office. In Seattle, the '' Post-Intelligencer'' made a similar offer with a $5,000 reward. The offers remained in effect until Thanksgiving 1974, and though several near matches were reported, no genuine bills were found. In 1975, Northwest Orient's insurer, Global Indemnity Co., complied with an order from the
Minnesota Supreme Court The Minnesota Supreme Court is the highest court in the U.S. state of Minnesota. The court hears cases in the Supreme Court chamber in the Minnesota State Capitol or in the nearby Minnesota Judicial Center. History The court was first assemb ...
and paid the airline's $180,000 () claim on the ransom money.


Later developments

Analysis of the flight data indicated the first estimated location of Cooper's landing zone was inaccurate. Captain Scott—who was flying the aircraft manually because of Cooper's speed and altitude demands—determined the flight path was farther east than initially reported. Additional data provided by
Continental Airlines Continental Airlines (simply known as Continental) was a major airline in the United States that operated from 1934 until it merged with United Airlines in 2012. It had ownership interests and brand partnerships with several carriers. Continen ...
pilot Tom Bohan—who was flying four minutes behind Flight 305—led the FBI to recalculate their estimates for Cooper's drop zone. Bohan noted the FBI's calculations for Cooper's drop zone were based on incorrectly-recorded wind direction, and therefore the FBI's estimates were inaccurate. Based on Bohan's data and subsequent recalculations of the flight path, the FBI determined Cooper's drop zone was probably over the Washougal River watershed. In 1986, FBI Agent Ralph Himmelsbach wrote, "I have to confess, if I were going to look for Cooper... I would head for the Washougal." The Washougal Valley and the surrounding areas have been repeatedly searched but no discoveries traceable to the hijacking have been reported, and the FBI believes any remaining physical clues were probably destroyed in the
1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens In March 1980, a series of volcanic explosions and pyroclastic flows began at Mount St. Helens in Skamania County, Washington, United States. A series of Phreatic eruption, phreatic blasts occurred from the summit and escalated until a major ...
.


Investigation suspended

On July 8, 2016, when Cooper was assumed to be at least 85 years old if alive, the FBI announced active investigation of the Cooper case was suspended, citing the need to deploy investigative resources and manpower on issues of greater and more urgent priority. Local field offices would continue to accept any legitimate physical evidence, related specifically to the parachutes or to the ransom money. The 66-volume case file compiled during the 45-year course of the investigation would be preserved for historical purposes at FBI headquarters in
Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...
, and on the FBI website. All of the evidence is open to the public. The crime remains the only documented unsolved case of air piracy in commercial aviation history.


Physical evidence

During their forensic search of the aircraft, FBI agents found four major pieces of evidence, each with a direct physical link to Cooper: a black clip-on tie, a mother-of-pearl tie clip, a hair from Cooper's headrest, and eight filter-tipped Raleigh cigarette butts from the armrest ashtray.


Clip-on necktie

FBI agents found a black clip-on necktie in seat 18-E, where Cooper had been seated. Attached to the tie was a gold tie-clip with a circular mother-of-pearl setting in the center of the clip. The FBI determined the tie had been sold exclusively at
JCPenney Penney OpCo LLC , Trade name, doing business as JCPenney (colloquially Penney's and abbreviated JCP) is an American department store chain store, chain with 649 stores across 49 U.S. states and Puerto Rico. It is managed as part of the Catalys ...
department stores, but had been discontinued in 1968. By late 2007, the FBI had built a partial
DNA Deoxyribonucleic acid (; DNA) is a polymer composed of two polynucleotide chains that coil around each other to form a double helix. The polymer carries genetic instructions for the development, functioning, growth and reproduction of al ...
profile from samples found on Cooper's tie in 2001. However, the FBI also acknowledged no evidence linked Cooper to the source of the DNA sample. FBI Special Agent Fred Gutt said, "The tie had two small DNA samples, and one large sample ... it's difficult to draw firm conclusions from these samples." The FBI also made public a file of previously unreleased evidence, including Cooper's airplane ticket, composite sketches, fact sheets, and posted a request for information about Cooper's identification. In March 2009, a group of "citizen sleuths" using GPS, satellite imagery, and other technologies unavailable in 1971, began reinvestigating components of the case. Known as the Cooper Research Team (CRT), the group included
paleontologist Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure geolo ...
Tom Kaye from the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture in Seattle, scientific illustrator Carol Abraczinskas,
computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...
Sean Christo, and
metallurgist Metallurgy is a domain of materials science and engineering that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their inter-metallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are known as alloys. Metallurgy encompasses both the ...
Alan Stone. Although the CRT obtained little new information about the buried ransom money or Cooper's landing zone, they found, analyzed, and identified hundreds of organic and metallic particles on Cooper's tie. Using
electron microscopy An electron microscope is a microscope that uses a beam of electrons as a source of illumination. It uses electron optics that are analogous to the glass lenses of an optical light microscope to control the electron beam, for instance focusing i ...
, the CRT identified ''
Lycopodium ''Lycopodium'' (from Ancient Greek ''lykos'', wolf and ''podion'', diminutive of ''pous'', foot) is a genus of clubmosses, also known as ground pines or creeping cedars, in the family Lycopodiaceae. Two very different circumscriptions of the gen ...
'' spores, the source of which was likely pharmaceutical. The team also found minute particles of unalloyed
titanium Titanium is a chemical element; it has symbol Ti and atomic number 22. Found in nature only as an oxide, it can be reduced to produce a lustrous transition metal with a silver color, low density, and high strength, resistant to corrosion in ...
on the tie, along with particles of
bismuth Bismuth is a chemical element; it has symbol Bi and atomic number 83. It is a post-transition metal and one of the pnictogens, with chemical properties resembling its lighter group 15 siblings arsenic and antimony. Elemental bismuth occurs nat ...
,
antimony Antimony is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Sb () and atomic number 51. A lustrous grey metal or metalloid, it is found in nature mainly as the sulfide mineral stibnite (). Antimony compounds have been known since ancient t ...
,
cerium Cerium is a chemical element; it has Chemical symbol, symbol Ce and atomic number 58. It is a hardness, soft, ductile, and silvery-white metal that tarnishes when exposed to air. Cerium is the second element in the lanthanide series, and while it ...
, strontium sulfide,
aluminum Aluminium (or aluminum in North American English) is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Al and atomic number 13. It has a density lower than that of other common metals, about one-third that of steel. Aluminium has ...
, and titanium-antimony alloys. The metal and
rare-earth The rare-earth elements (REE), also called the rare-earth metals or rare earths, and sometimes the lanthanides or lanthanoids (although scandium and yttrium, which do not belong to this series, are usually included as rare earths), are a set of ...
particles suggested Cooper may have worked for Boeing or another aeronautical engineering company, at a chemical manufacturing plant, or at a metal fabrication and production facility. The material with the most significance, explained Kaye, was the unalloyed
titanium Titanium is a chemical element; it has symbol Ti and atomic number 22. Found in nature only as an oxide, it can be reduced to produce a lustrous transition metal with a silver color, low density, and high strength, resistant to corrosion in ...
. During the 1970s, the use of pure titanium was rare and would only be used in aircraft fabrication facilities, or at chemical companies combining titanium and aluminum to store extremely corrosive substances. The cerium and strontium sulfide were used by
Boeing The Boeing Company, or simply Boeing (), is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product support s ...
's supersonic transport development project, and by Portland factories in which
cathode-ray tube A cathode-ray tube (CRT) is a vacuum tube containing one or more electron guns, which emit electron beams that are manipulated to display images on a phosphorescent screen. The images may represent electrical waveforms on an oscilloscope, a ...
s were manufactured, such as
Teledyne Teledyne Technologies Incorporated is an American industrial conglomerate. It was founded in 1960, as Teledyne, Inc. by Henry Singleton and George Kozmetsky. From August 1996 to November 1999, Teledyne existed as part of the conglomerate Al ...
and
Tektronix Tektronix, Inc., historically widely known as Tek, is an American company best known for manufacturing test and measurement devices such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and video and mobile test protocol equipment. Originally an independent c ...
. Cooper researcher Eric Ulis has speculated that the titanium-antimony alloys are linked to Rem-Cru Titanium Inc., a metals manufacturer and Boeing contractor.


Hair samples

FBI agents found two hair samples in Cooper's seat: a single strand of limb hair on the seat, and a single strand of brown Caucasian head hair on the headrest. The limb hair was destroyed after the FBI Crime Laboratory determined the sample lacked enough unique microscopic characteristics to be useful. However, the FBI Crime Laboratory determined the head hair was suitable for future comparison, and preserved the hair on a microscope slide. During their attempts to build Cooper's DNA profile in 2002, the FBI discovered the hair sample had been lost.


Cigarette butts

In the armrest ashtray of seat 18-E, FBI agents found eight Raleigh filter-tipped cigarette butts. The butts were sent to the FBI Crime Laboratory, but investigators were unable to find fingerprints and returned the butts to the Las Vegas field office. In 1998, the FBI sought to extract DNA from the cigarette butts, but discovered the butts had been destroyed while in the custody of the Las Vegas field office.


Recovered ransom money

On February 10, 1980, eight-year-old Brian Ingram was vacationing with his family on the
Columbia River The Columbia River (Upper Chinook language, Upper Chinook: ' or '; Sahaptin language, Sahaptin: ''Nch’i-Wàna'' or ''Nchi wana''; Sinixt dialect'' '') is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river headwater ...
at a beachfront known as Tina (or Tena) Bar, about downstream from
Vancouver, Washington Vancouver ( ) is a city on the north bank of the Columbia River in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington, located in Clark County, Washington, Clark County. Founded in 1825 and incorporated in 1857, Vancouver had a population of 190, ...
, and southwest of Ariel. As he raked the sandy riverbank to build a campfire, he uncovered three packets of the ransom cash, totaling about $5,800. The bills had disintegrated from lengthy exposure to the elements, but were still bundled in rubber bands. FBI technicians confirmed the money was indeed a portion of the ransom: two packets of 100 twenty-dollar bills each, and a third packet of 90, all arranged in the same order as when given to Cooper. The discovery caused new conjecture, and ultimately raised more questions than it answered. Initial statements by investigators and scientific consultants were founded on the assumption the bundled bills washed freely into the Columbia River from one of its many connecting tributaries. An Army Corps of Engineers
hydrologist Hydrology () is the scientific study of the movement, distribution, and management of water on Earth and other planets, including the water cycle, water resources, and drainage basin sustainability. A practitioner of hydrology is called a hydro ...
noted the bills had disintegrated in a "rounded" fashion and were "matted together", indicating they "had been deposited by river action", as opposed to having been buried deliberately. The finding supported the hypothesis Cooper had landed near the Washougal River, which merges with the Columbia upstream from the discovery site, and not in or near Lake Merwin, the Lewis River, or any of its tributaries feeding the Columbia River downstream from Tina Bar. The "free-floating" hypothesis neither explained the ten bills missing from one packet, nor explained how the three packets remained together after separating from the rest of the money. Physical evidence was incompatible with geological evidence; Himmelsbach wrote free-floating bundles would have washed up on the bank "within a couple of years" of the hijacking; otherwise, the rubber bands would have long since deteriorated. Geological evidence suggested the bills arrived at Tina Bar after 1974, when the Army Corps of Engineers performed a
dredging Dredging is the excavation of material from a water environment. Possible reasons for dredging include improving existing water features; reshaping land and water features to alter drainage, navigability, and commercial use; constructing d ...
operation on a nearby section of the river. Geologist Leonard Palmer of
Portland State University Portland State University (PSU) is a public research university in Portland, Oregon, United States. It was founded in 1946 as a post-secondary educational institution for World War II veterans. It evolved into a four-year college over the next ...
found two distinct layers of sand and sediment between the clay deposited on the riverbank by the dredge and the sand layer in which the bills were buried, indicating the bills arrived long after dredging had been completed. In late 2020, analysis of
diatom A diatom (Neo-Latin ''diatoma'') is any member of a large group comprising several Genus, genera of algae, specifically microalgae, found in the oceans, waterways and soils of the world. Living diatoms make up a significant portion of Earth's B ...
s found on the bills suggests the bundles found at Tina Bar were not submerged in the river or buried dry at the time of the hijacking in November 1971. Only diatoms that bloom during springtime were found, indicating the money had entered the water at least several months after the hijacking. In 1986, after protracted negotiations, the recovered bills were divided equally between Brian Ingram and Northwest Orient's insurer Royal Globe Insurance; the FBI retained 14 examples as evidence. Ingram sold fifteen of his bills at auction in 2008 for about $37,000 (). The Columbia River ransom money remains the only confirmed physical evidence from the hijacking found outside the aircraft.


Parachutes

During the hijacking, Cooper demanded and received two main parachutes and two reserve parachutes. The two reserve (front) parachutes were supplied by a local skydiving school and the two main (back) parachutes were supplied by a local pilot, Norman Hayden. Earl Cossey, the parachute rigger who packed all four parachutes brought to Cooper, described the two main parachutes as emergency bailout parachutes (as opposed to sporting parachutes used by skydivers). Cossey further described the main parachutes as being like military parachutes because they were rigged to open immediately upon the ripcord being pulled and were incapable of being steered. When the airplane landed in Reno, FBI agents discovered two parachutes Cooper left behind: one reserve (front) parachute and one main (back) parachute. The reserve parachute had been opened and three shroud lines had been cut out, but the main parachute left behind was still intact. The unused main parachute was described by FBI agents as a Model NB6 (Navy Backpack 6) and is on display at the Washington State Historical Society Museum. One of the two reserve (front) parachutes Cooper was given was an unusable training parachute intended to only be used for classroom demonstrations. According to Cossey, the reserve parachute's internal canopy was sewn together so skydiving students could get the feel of pulling a ripcord on a packed parachute without the canopy actually deploying. This non-functional reserve parachute was not found in the aircraft when it landed in Reno, causing FBI agents to speculate Cooper was not an experienced parachutist because someone with experience would have realized this reserve parachute was a "dummy parachute". However, within days of the hijacking, the FBI revealed that neither of the parachute harnesses Cooper was given had the necessary D-rings required to attach reserve parachutes. Although Cooper lacked the ability to attach this "dummy" parachute to his main harness as a reserve parachute, it was not found in the airplane, so what he did with it is unknown. Cossey speculated Cooper removed the sewn-together canopy and used the empty reserve container as an extra money bag. Tina Mucklow's testimony was in line with Cossey's speculation, stating she recalled Cooper attempting to pack money inside a parachute container. In November 1978, a deer hunter found a 727's instruction placard for lowering the aft airstair. The placard was found near a logging road about east of
Castle Rock, Washington Castle Rock is a city in Cowlitz County, Washington, Cowlitz County, Washington (state), Washington, United States. Located between the Willapa Hills and the western base of Mount St. Helens, Castle Rock is at the heart of Washington timber count ...
, north of Lake Merwin, but within Flight 305's basic flight path.


Theories, hypotheses and conjecture

During the 45-year span of its active investigation, the FBI periodically made public some of its working hypotheses and tentative conclusions, drawn from witness testimony and the scarce physical evidence.


Sketches

During the first year of the investigation, the FBI used eyewitness testimony from the passengers and flight crew to develop sketches of Cooper. The first sketch, officially titled Composite A, was completed a few days after the hijacking and was released on November 28, 1971. According to witnesses, the Composite A sketch—jokingly known as "
Bing Crosby Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby Jr. (May 3, 1903 – October 14, 1977) was an American singer, comedian, entertainer and actor. The first multimedia star, he was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century worldwi ...
"—was not an accurate likeness of Cooper. The Composite A sketch, said witnesses, showed a young man with a narrow face, and did not resemble Cooper or capture his disinterested, "let's get this over with" look. Flight attendant Florence Schaffner repeatedly told the FBI the Composite A sketch was a very poor likeness of Cooper. After multiple eyewitnesses said Composite A was not an accurate rendering, FBI artists developed a second composite sketch. Completed in late 1972, the second Composite B sketch was intended to depict more accurately Cooper's age, skin tone, and face shape. Eyewitnesses to whom Composite B was shown said the sketch was more accurate, but the Composite B Cooper looked too "angry" or "nasty". One flight attendant said the Composite B sketch looked like a "hoodlum" and remembered Cooper as "more refined in appearance". Moreover, said witnesses, the Composite B sketch depicted a man older than Cooper, with a lighter complexion. Using the criticisms of Composite B, FBI artists made adjustments and improvements to the Composite B sketch. On January 2, 1973, the FBI finalized revised Composite B, their third sketch of Cooper. Of the new sketch, one flight attendant said revised Composite B was, "a very close resemblance" to the hijacker. Opined another flight attendant, "the hijacker would be easily recognized from this sketch." In April 1973, the FBI concluded the revised Composite B sketch was the best likeness of Cooper they could develop, and should be considered the definitive sketch of Cooper.


Suspect profiling

Flight attendants Schaffner and Mucklow, who spent the most time interacting with Cooper, were interviewed on the same night in separate cities and gave nearly identical descriptions: a man in his mid-40s, approximately tall and , with olive-toned skin, brown eyes, short combed-back black hair, and no discernible accent.
University of Oregon The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a Public university, public research university in Eugene, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1876, the university is organized into nine colleges and schools and offers 420 undergraduate and gra ...
student Bill Mitchell, who sat across from Cooper during the three-hour flight, gave the FBI several interviews and provided detailed descriptions of Cooper for what subsequently became Composite Sketch B. Mitchell's descriptions of Cooper were similar to those provided by the flight attendants, except Mitchell described Cooper as to . Since Mitchell was tall, he described himself as "way bigger" than Cooper and referred to Cooper as "slight". Robert Gregory, one of the only other passengers besides Mitchell who provided the FBI with a full description of Cooper, also described Cooper as tall. Gregory stated he believed Cooper to be of Mexican-American or Native American descent. In May 1973, the FBI internally released an eight-page suspect profile of Cooper. The profile suggested Cooper was a military-trained parachutist and not a sports skydiver: in addition to his familiarity with the military parachutes with which he was provided, Cooper's age would have made him an outlier in the sport-skydiving community and would have increased the likelihood of being recognized by a club member. Multiple eyewitnesses noted Cooper's athletic build, so the FBI profile suggested Cooper probably exercised regularly despite his age. FBI profilers suspected Cooper was an Air Force veteran familiar with Seattle and the surrounding areas. Cooper recognized Tacoma as the jet circled Puget Sound, and in his conversation with Mucklow, Cooper correctly noted McChord AFB's proximity to Seattle-Tacoma Airport, a detail with which most civilians would be unfamiliar. Cooper's mannerisms—such as his vocabulary, planning, his thorough retrieval of evidence, and his use of aviation terminology—led the FBI to conclude Cooper was not a common criminal: Cooper was clearly intelligent, not impulsive or easily rattled, a careful and procedure-oriented planner, adept at anticipating contingencies and adaptive strategies, with meticulous and methodical tendencies. Profilers also noted Cooper's ability to quickly and competently adapt to various situations as they arose indicated he probably preferred to work independently, and neither needed nor wanted an accomplice. Cooper's financial situation was probably desperate. According to retired FBI chief investigator Ralph Himmelsbach,
extortion Extortion is the practice of obtaining benefit (e.g., money or goods) through coercion. In most jurisdictions it is likely to constitute a criminal offence. Robbery is the simplest and most common form of extortion, although making unfounded ...
ists and other criminals who steal large amounts of money nearly always do so because they need it urgently; otherwise, the crime is not worth the considerable risk. The FBI considered—but ultimately dismissed—the possibility Cooper was a "thrill seeker" who made the jump "just to prove it could be done". Because Cooper spilled the only drink he was served and never requested another, the FBI theorized Cooper was neither a heavy drinker nor an alcoholic. Moreover, an alcoholic would likely have been incapable of refusing further alcoholic beverages throughout the stressful and lengthy hijacking. By calculating the number of cigarettes Cooper smoked throughout the hijacking, the FBI believed Cooper smoked about one pack of cigarettes a day. Agents theorized Cooper's alias was based on the adventure hero Dan Cooper, a fictional
Royal Canadian Air Force The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF; ) is the air and space force of Canada. Its role is to "provide the Canadian Forces with relevant, responsive and effective airpower". The RCAF is one of three environmental commands within the unified Can ...
test pilot and the main character of a popular French-language Belgian comic book series, one cover of which depicted Dan Cooper skydiving. Because the Dan Cooper comics were neither translated to English nor imported to the United States, FBI profilers speculated the hijacker encountered them during a European tour of duty, and spoke fluent French.


Knowledge and planning

Based on the evidence and Cooper's tactics, the FBI speculated Cooper planned the hijacking carefully using detailed, specific knowledge of aviation, the local terrain, and the 727's capabilities. Cooper chose a seat in the last row of the rear cabin for three reasons: to observe and respond to any action in front of him, to minimize the possibility of being approached or attacked by someone behind him, and to make himself less conspicuous to the rest of the passengers. To ensure he would not be deliberately supplied with sabotaged equipment, Cooper demanded four parachutes to force the assumption he might compel one or more hostages to jump with him. FBI agent Ralph Himmelsbach noted Cooper's choice of a bomb—instead of other weapons previously used by hijackers—thwarted any multidirectional attempts to rush him. Cooper was careful to avoid leaving evidence. Before he jumped, Cooper demanded Mucklow return to him all notes either written by him, or on his behalf. Mucklow said she used the last match in his paper matchbook to light one of his cigarettes, and when she attempted to dispose of the empty matchbook, he demanded she return it to him. Although Cooper meticulously attempted to retrieve evidence, he left his clip-on tie in his seat. Cooper was clearly familiar with the 727's capabilities and confidential features, but the 727's design was the primary reason Cooper chose the aircraft. With its aft airstair and the placement of its three engines, the 727 was one of the only passenger jets from which a parachute jump could be easily made. Mucklow told the FBI Cooper appeared to be familiar with the 727's typical refueling time and procedures. By specifying a 15° flap setting, Cooper displayed specific knowledge of aviation tactics and the 727's capabilities. Unlike most commercial jet airliners, the 727 could remain in slow, low-altitude flight without stalling. The flap setting Cooper specifically requested allowed him to control the 727's airspeed and altitude without entering the cockpit, where he could have been overpowered by the three pilots. First Officer Bill Rataczak, who spoke with Cooper on the intercom during the hijacking, told the FBI, " ooperdisplayed a specific knowledge of flying and aircraft in general." The most significant knowledge Cooper displayed was a feature both secret and unique to the 727: the aft airstair could be operated during flight, and the single activation switch in the rear of the cabin could not be overridden from the cockpit. Cooper knew how to operate the aft staircase, and had clearly planned to use it for his escape. The FBI speculated Cooper knew the
Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...
was using 727s to drop agents and supplies into enemy territory during the Vietnam War. Since no situation on a passenger flight would necessitate such an operation, civilian crews were neither informed the aft airstair could be lowered midflight, nor were they aware its operation could not be overridden from the cockpit. Cooper appeared to be familiar with parachutes, although his experience level is unknown. Mucklow said Cooper, "appeared to be completely familiar with the parachutes which had been furnished to him", and told a journalist, "Cooper put on isparachute as though he did so every day". Cooper's familiarity with the military-style parachutes he was given has resulted in speculation that Cooper was a military parachutist and not a civilian skydiver. Larry Carr, who directed the investigative team from 2006 to 2009, does not believe Cooper was a
paratrooper A paratrooper or military parachutist is a soldier trained to conduct military operations by parachuting directly into an area of operations, usually as part of a large airborne forces unit. Traditionally paratroopers fight only as light infa ...
. Instead, Carr speculates Cooper had been an Air Force aircraft cargo loader. An aircraft cargo-loading assignment would provide him with aviation knowledge and experience: cargo loaders have basic jump training, wear emergency parachutes, and know how to dispatch items from planes in flight. As a cargo loader, Cooper would be familiar with parachutes, "but not necessarily sufficient knowledge to survive the jump he made".


Cooper's fate

From the beginning of their investigation, FBI agents did not believe Cooper survived his jump. The FBI provided several reasons and facts to support its conclusion: Cooper's apparent lack of skydiving experience, his lack of proper equipment for his jump and survival, the temperature and inclement weather on the night of the hijacking, the wooded terrain into which Cooper jumped, his lack of knowledge of his landing area, and the unused ransom money. First, Cooper appeared to lack the necessary
skydiving Parachuting and skydiving are methods of descending from a high point in an atmosphere to the ground or ocean surface with the aid of gravity, involving the control of speed during the descent using a parachute or multiple parachutes. For hu ...
knowledge, skills, and experience for the type of jump he attempted. Carr said: "We originally thought Cooper was an experienced jumper, perhaps even a paratrooper." He further said: "We concluded after a few years this was simply not true. No experienced parachutist would have jumped in the pitch-black night, in the rain, with a wind in his face wearing loafers and a trench coat. It was simply too risky." Alternatively, skydiving instructor Earl Cossey, who supplied the parachutes, testified Cooper would not have needed extensive experience to survive the jump and "anyone who had six or seven practice jumps could accomplish this". However, Cossey also noted jumping at night drastically increased the risk of injury, and without jump boots, Cooper would probably have suffered severe ankle or leg injuries upon landing. Second, Cooper did not appear to have the equipment necessary for either his jump or his survival in the wilderness. He failed to bring or request a helmet, and jumped into a 15 °F (−9 °C) wind at 10,000 feet (3,000 m) in November over Washington without proper protection against the extreme
wind chill Wind chill (popularly wind chill factor) is the sensation of cold produced by the wind for a given ambient air temperature on exposed skin as the air motion accelerates the rate of heat transfer from the body to the surrounding atmosphere. Its va ...
. Although the contents of Cooper's paper bag are unknown, he did not use any of the bag's contents to assist him during any part of the hijacking, so the FBI speculated the bag contained items he needed for his jump, such as boots, gloves, and goggles. Third, Cooper did not have an
accomplice Aiding and abetting is a legal doctrine related to the guilt of someone who aids or abets (encourages, incites) another person in the commission of a crime (or in another's suicide). It exists in a number of different countries and generally al ...
waiting on the ground to help him escape. Such an arrangement would have required both a precisely timed jump and the flight crew's cooperation to follow a predetermined flight path, but Cooper did not give the flight crew a specific path. Moreover, the flight crew proposed—and Cooper agreed—to alter the flight path, and fly from Seattle to Reno for refueling, and Cooper had no way of keeping an accomplice apprised of his changed plans. The low cloud cover and lack of visibility to the ground further complicated Cooper's ability to determine his location, establish a bearing, or see his landing zone. Finally, the ransom money was never spent, and the recovered portion was found unused. Carr said: "Diving into the wilderness without a plan, without the right equipment, in such terrible conditions, he probably never even got his chute open." FBI agent Richard Tosaw theorized Cooper became incapacitated from hypothermia during his jump, landed in the Columbia River, and drowned. However, FBI agents were not unanimous in their assessments of Cooper's ultimate fate. A senior FBI agent anonymously opined in a 1976 article in ''
The Seattle Times ''The Seattle Times'' is an American daily newspaper based in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1891, ''The Seattle Times'' has the largest circulation of any newspaper in the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region. The Seattle Time ...
'', "I think oopermade it. I think he slept in his own bed that night. It was a clear night. A lot of the country is pretty flat ... he could have just walked out. Right down the road. Hell, they weren't even looking for him there at the time. They thought he was somewhere else. He could just walk down the road." Conclusive evidence of Cooper's death has not been found. In the months after Cooper's hijacking, five men attempted copycat hijackings, and all five survived their parachute escapes. The survival of the copycats—several of whom had circumstances and conditions similar to Cooper's jump—forced FBI lead case agent Ralph Himmelsbach to reevaluate his opinions and theories regarding Cooper's chances for survival. Himmelsbach cited three examples of hijackers who survived jumps in conditions similar to Cooper's escape: Martin McNally, Frederick Hahneman, and Richard LaPoint. Hijacker Martin McNally jumped using only a reserve chute, without protective gear, at night, over Indiana. Unlike Cooper, who appeared to be familiar with parachutes, McNally had to be shown how to put on his parachute. Additionally, McNally's pilot increased the airspeed to , nearly twice the airspeed of Flight 305 at the time of Cooper's jump. The increased windspeed caused a violent jump for McNally: the money bag was immediately torn from him, "yet he had landed unharmed except for some superficial scratches and bruises". 49-year-old Frederick Hahneman hijacked a 727 in Pennsylvania and survived after jumping at night into a Honduran jungle. A third copycat, Richard LaPoint, hijacked a 727 in Nevada. Wearing only trousers, a shirt, and cowboy boots, LaPoint jumped into the freezing January wind over northern Colorado and landed in the snow. In 2008, Himmelsbach admitted he originally thought Cooper had only a fifty-percent chance of survival, but subsequently revised his assessment. By 1976, most published legal analyses concurred the impending expiration of the
statute of limitations A statute of limitations, known in civil law systems as a prescriptive period, is a law passed by a legislative body to set the maximum time after an event within which legal proceedings may be initiated. ("Time for commencing proceedings") In ...
for prosecution of the hijacker would make little difference. Since the statute's interpretation varies from case to case and from court to court, a prosecutor could argue Cooper had forfeited
legal immunity Legal immunity, or immunity from prosecution, is a legal status wherein an individual or entity cannot be held liable for a violation of the law, in order to facilitate societal aims that outweigh the value of imposing liability in such cases. S ...
on any of several valid technical grounds. In November 1976, a Portland
grand jury A grand jury is a jury empowered by law to conduct legal proceedings, investigate potential criminal conduct, and determine whether criminal charges should be brought. A grand jury may subpoena physical evidence or a person to testify. A grand ju ...
returned an indictment ''
in absentia ''In Absentia'' is the seventh studio album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, first released on 24 September 2002. The album marked several changes for the band, with it being the first with new drummer Gavin Harrison and the f ...
'' against "
John Doe John Doe (male) and Jane Doe (female) are multiple-use placeholder names that are used in the British, Canadian, and American legal systems, when the true name of a person is unknown or is being intentionally concealed. In the context of law ...
, ''a.k.a.'' Dan Cooper" for air piracy and violation of the
Hobbs Act The Hobbs Act, codified at , is a United States federal law enacted in 1946 that prohibits actual or attempted robbery or extortion that affects interstate or foreign commerce, as well as conspiracies to do so. The Act is named for United Stat ...
. The indictment formally enabled prosecution to be continued, should the hijacker be apprehended at any time in the future.


Suspects

Between 1971 and 2016, the FBI processed more than a thousand "serious suspects", including assorted publicity seekers and deathbed confessors.


Ted Braden

Theodore Burdette Braden Jr. (1928–2007) was a Special Forces commando during the
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (1 November 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam w ...
, a master skydiver, and a convicted felon. He was believed by many within the Special Forces community, both at the time of the hijacking and during subsequent years, to have been Cooper. Born in Ohio, Braden first joined the military at the age of 16 in 1944, serving with the
101st Airborne The 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) ("Screaming Eagles") is a light infantry division (military), division of the United States Army that specializes in air assault military operation, operations. The 101st is designed to plan, coordinat ...
during World War II. He eventually became one of the military's best parachutists, often representing the Army in international skydiving tournaments, and his military records list him as having made 911 jumps. During the 1960s, Braden was a team leader within the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam – Studies and Observations Group (MACVSOG), a classified commando unit of
Green Berets The United States Army Special Forces (SF), colloquially known as the "Green Berets" due to their distinctive service Berets of the United States Army, headgear, is a branch of the United States Army United States Army Special Operations Comm ...
which performed unconventional warfare operations during the Vietnam War. He also served as a military skydiving instructor, teaching
HALO HALO, halo, halos or haloes may refer to: Most common meanings * Halo (optical phenomenon) * Halo (religious iconography), a ring of light around the image of a head * ''Halo'' (franchise), a sci-fi video game series (2001–2021) Arts and en ...
jumping techniques to members of Project Delta. Braden spent 23 months in Vietnam, conducting classified operations within both North and South Vietnam, as well as Laos and Cambodia. In December 1966, Braden deserted his unit in Vietnam and made his way to the Congo to serve as a
mercenary A mercenary is a private individual who joins an armed conflict for personal profit, is otherwise an outsider to the conflict, and is not a member of any other official military. Mercenaries fight for money or other forms of payment rather t ...
, but only served there a brief time before being arrested by CIA agents and taken back to the United States for a court-martial. Despite having committed a capital offense by deserting in wartime, Braden was given an honorable discharge and prohibited from re-enlisting in the military in exchange for his continued secrecy about the MACVSOG program. Braden was profiled in the October 1967 issue of ''Ramparts'' magazine, wherein he was described by fellow Special Forces veteran and journalist Don Duncan as being someone with a "secret death wish" who "continually places himself in unnecessary danger but always seems to get away with it", specifically referring to Braden's disregard for military skydiving safety regulations. Duncan also claimed that during Braden's time in Vietnam, he was "continuously involved in shady deals to make money". After his military discharge in 1967, the details of Braden's life are largely unknown, but at the time of the hijacking he was a truck driver for Consolidated Freightways, which was headquartered in Vancouver, Washington, just across the Columbia River from Portland and not far from the suspected dropzone of Ariel, Washington. It is also known that during the early 1970s he was investigated by the FBI for stealing $250,000 during a trucking scam he had allegedly devised, but he was never charged for this supposed crime. In 1980, Braden was indicted by a Federal grand jury for driving an 18-wheeler full of stolen goods from Arizona to Massachusetts, but it is unknown whether there was a conviction in that case. Two years later Braden was arrested in Pennsylvania for driving a stolen vehicle with fictitious plates and for having no driver's license. Braden was eventually sent to Federal prison during the late 1980s, serving time in Pennsylvania, but the precise crime is unknown. Despite his ability as a soldier, he was not well liked personally and was described by a family member as "the perfect combination of high intelligence and criminality". From his time working covert operations in Vietnam, he likely would have possessed the then-classified knowledge about the ability and proper specifications for jumping from a 727, perhaps having done it himself on MACVSOG missions. Physically, Braden's military records list him at , which is shorter than the height description of at least given by the two flight attendants, but this military measurement would have been taken in his stocking feet and he may have appeared somewhat taller in shoes. However, he possessed a dark complexion from years of outdoor military service, had short dark hair, a medium athletic build, and was 43 years of age at the time of the hijacking, which are features all in line with the descriptions of Cooper.


Kenneth Christiansen

In 2003,
Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...
resident Lyle Christiansen watched a television documentary about the Cooper hijacking and became convinced that his late brother Kenneth (1926–1994) was Cooper. After repeated futile attempts to convince the FBI as well as author and movie director
Nora Ephron Nora Ephron ( ; May 19, 1941 – June 26, 2012) was an American journalist, writer, and filmmaker. She is best known for writing and directing romantic comedy films and received numerous accolades including a British Academy Film Award as ...
(whom he hoped would make a movie about the case), he contacted
private investigator A private investigator (often abbreviated to PI; also known as a private detective, an inquiry agent or informally a wikt:private eye, private eye) is a person who can be hired by individuals or groups to undertake investigatory law services. ...
Skipp Porteous in New York City. In 2010, Porteous published a book postulating that Christiansen was the hijacker. The next year, an episode of the
History History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...
series '' Brad Meltzer's Decoded'' also summarized the circumstantial evidence linking Christiansen to the Cooper case. Christiansen enlisted in the Army in 1944 and was trained as a paratrooper.
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
had ended by the time he was deployed in 1945, but he made occasional training jumps while stationed in Japan with occupation forces during the late 1940s. After leaving the Army, he joined Northwest Orient in 1954 as a laborer stationed at Northwest Airlines' Far East stopover on Shemya Island in the Aleutians. He subsequently became a flight attendant, and then a
purser A purser is the person on a ship principally responsible for the handling of money on board. On modern merchant ships, the purser is the officer responsible for all administration (including the ship's cargo and passenger manifests) and supply. ...
, based in Seattle. Christiansen was 45 years old at the time of the hijacking, but he was shorter (5 ft 8 in or 173 cm) and thinner (150 pounds or 68 kg) than eyewitness descriptions of Cooper. Christiansen smoked (as did the hijacker) and displayed a fondness for bourbon (the drink Cooper had requested). Stewardess Florence Schaffner told author Geoffrey Gray that photos of Christiansen fit her memory of the hijacker's appearance more closely than those of the other suspects she had been shown, but added that she could not conclusively identify him. Despite the publicity generated by Porteous's book and the 2011 television documentary, the FBI maintains that Christiansen cannot be considered a
prime suspect ''Prime Suspect'' is a British police procedural television series devised by Lynda La Plante. Broadcast on ITV between 1991 and 2006, it stars Helen Mirren as Jane Tennison, one of the first female Detective Chief Inspectors in Greater Lo ...
. It cites the poor match to eyewitness physical descriptions and a complete absence of direct incriminating evidence.


Jack Coffelt

Bryant "Jack" Coffelt (1917–1975) was a
con man A scam, or a confidence trick, is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust. Confidence tricks exploit victims using a combination of the victim's credulity, naivety, compassion, vanity, confidence, irresponsibi ...
, ex-convict, and purported government informant who claimed to have been the chauffeur and confidant of
Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th president of the United States, serving from 1861 until Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, his assassination in 1865. He led the United States through the American Civil War ...
's last undisputed descendant, great-grandson Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith. In 1972, he began claiming he was Cooper and attempted through an intermediary – a former cellmate named James Brown – to sell his story to a
Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood ...
production company. He said he landed near
Mount Hood Mount Hood, also known as Wy'east, is an active stratovolcano in the Cascade Range and is a member of the Cascade Volcanic Arc. It was formed by a subduction zone on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast and rests in the Pacific N ...
, about southeast of Ariel, injuring himself and losing the ransom money in the process. Photos of Coffelt bear a resemblance to the composite drawings, although he was in his mid-fifties in 1971. He was reportedly in Portland on the day of the hijacking and sustained leg injuries around that time which were consistent with a skydiving mishap. Coffelt's account was reviewed by the FBI, which concluded that it differed in several details from information that had not been made public and was therefore a fabrication. Brown continued peddling the story long after Coffelt died in 1975. Multiple media venues, including the
CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...
news program ''
60 Minutes ''60 Minutes'' is an American television news magazine broadcast on the CBS television network. Debuting in 1968, the program was created by Don Hewitt and Bill Leonard, who distinguished it from other news programs by using a unique style o ...
'', considered and rejected it.


Lynn Cooper

Lynn Doyle "L. D." Cooper (1931–1999), a leather worker and
Korean War The Korean War (25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953) was an armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula fought between North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea; DPRK) and South Korea (Republic of Korea; ROK) and their allies. North Korea was s ...
veteran, was proposed as a suspect in July 2011 by his niece, Marla Cooper. As an eight-year-old, she recalled Cooper and another uncle planning something "very mischievous", involving the use of "expensive walkie-talkies", at her grandmother's house in
Sisters, Oregon Sisters is a city in Deschutes County, Oregon, Deschutes County, Oregon, United States. It is part of the Bend, Oregon Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 2,038 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census. The community takes its ...
, southeast of Portland. The next day Flight 305 was hijacked; and though the uncles ostensibly were turkey hunting, L. D. Cooper came home wearing a bloody shirt—the result, he said, of an auto accident. Later, Marla claimed, her parents came to believe that L. D. was the hijacker. She also recalled that her uncle, who died in 1999, was obsessed with the Canadian comic book hero Dan Cooper and "had one of his comic books thumbtacked to his wall"—although he was not a skydiver or paratrooper. In August 2011, ''New York'' magazine published an alternative witness sketch, reportedly based on a description by Flight 305 eyewitness Robert Gregory, depicting horn-rimmed sunglasses, a "russet"-colored suit jacket with wide lapels, and marcelled hair. The article observed that L. D. Cooper had wavy hair that looked marcelled (as did Duane Weber, see below). The FBI announced that no fingerprints had been found on a guitar strap made by L. D. Cooper. One week later, they added that his DNA did not match the partial DNA profile obtained from the hijacker's tie, but acknowledged that there is no certainty that the hijacker was the source of the organic material obtained from the tie.


Barbara Dayton

Barbara Dayton (1926–2002), a recreational pilot and
University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...
librarian who was named Robert Dayton at birth, served in the
U.S. Merchant Marine The United States Merchant Marine is an organization composed of United States civilian sailor, mariners and U.S. civilian and federally owned merchant vessels. Both the civilian mariners and the merchant vessels are managed by a combination of ...
and then the Army during World War II. After discharge, Dayton worked with explosives for construction work and aspired to a professional airline career, but could not obtain a commercial pilot's license. Dayton had gender reassignment surgery in 1969, and changed her name to Barbara; she is believed to be the first person to have had this type of surgery in Washington. She claimed to have staged the hijacking two years later, presenting as a man, in order to "get back" at the airline industry and the FAA, whose insurmountable rules and conditions had prevented her from becoming an airline pilot. Dayton said that the ransom money was hidden in a
cistern A cistern (; , ; ) is a waterproof receptacle for holding liquids, usually water. Cisterns are often built to catch and store rainwater. To prevent leakage, the interior of the cistern is often lined with hydraulic plaster. Cisterns are disti ...
near
Woodburn, Oregon Woodburn is a city in Marion County, Oregon, United States. Incorporated in 1889, the community had been platted in 1871 after the arrival of the railroad. The city is located in the northern end of the Willamette Valley between Portland, Oregon, ...
, a suburban area south of Portland. She eventually recanted the entire story, ostensibly after learning that hijacking charges could still be brought. She also did not match the physical description particularly closely.


William Gossett

William Pratt Gossett (1930–2003) was a
Marine Corps Marines (or naval infantry) are military personnel generally trained to operate on both land and sea, with a particular focus on amphibious warfare. Historically, the main tasks undertaken by marines have included raiding ashore (often in supp ...
, Army, and
Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...
veteran who had military service in Korea and Vietnam. His military experience included jump training and wilderness survival. Gossett was known to be obsessed with the Cooper hijacking. According to Galen Cook, a lawyer who has collected information related to Gossett for years, he once showed his sons a key to a
Vancouver, British Columbia Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...
,
safe deposit box A safe deposit box, sometimes referred to as a safety deposit box, is an individually secured container, usually held within a larger safe or bank vault. Safe deposit boxes are generally located in banks, post offices or other institutions. S ...
which, he claimed, contained the long-missing ransom money. The FBI has no direct evidence implicating Gossett and cannot reliably place him in the
Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (PNW; ) is a geographic region in Western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though no official boundary exists, the most common ...
at the time of the hijacking. "There is not one link to the D. B. Cooper case," said Special Agent Carr, "other than the statements
ossett Ossett is a market town in the Wakefield district, in the county of West Yorkshire, England. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is situated between Dewsbury, Horbury and Wakefield. At the 2021 census, the town had a po ...
made to someone."Was D.B. Cooper an Ogden Resident?
" (July 28, 2008) ''Deseret News'' (Salt Lake City) via Associated Press. Retrieved February 1, 2011.


Joe Lakich

Joe Lakich (1921–2017) was a retired U.S. Army Major and Korean War veteran whose daughter Susan Giffe was killed less than two months before the hijacking, as a consequence of a botched hostage negotiation conducted by the FBI. The events culminating in the death of Lakich's daughter would be studied by hostage negotiators for decades as an example of what not to do during a hostage situation. He and his wife later sued the FBI, and ultimately an Appeals Court ruled in their favor, holding that the FBI acted negligently during the hostage negotiation. Lakich would become a Cooper suspect in large part due to the revelation that Cooper's tie contained microscopic particles of uncommon metals, such as unalloyed titanium. It is speculated that few people during that era would have contact with such materials, and that Cooper may have worked in a manufacturing environment working on electronics as engineer or manager. When the hijacking occurred, Lakich was working in Nashville as a production supervisor at an electronics capacitor factory and would have likely been exposed to the materials found on the tie. When Cooper was asked by Tina Mucklow why he was committing the hijacking, he replied: "It's not because I have a grudge against your airlines, it's just because I have a grudge." It is believed by some that this "grudge" was Lakich's anger toward the FBI for their failed efforts at rescuing his daughter less than two months earlier.


John List

John Emil List (1925–2008) was an accountant and war veteran who murdered his wife, three teenage children, and 85-year-old mother in
Westfield, New Jersey Westfield is a Town (New Jersey), town in Union County, New Jersey, Union County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, located southwest of Manhattan. As of the 2020 United States census, the town's population was 31,032, an increase of 716 (+2.4% ...
, fifteen days before the Cooper hijacking, withdrew $200,000 from his mother's bank account, and disappeared. He came to the attention of the Cooper task force due to the timing of his disappearance, multiple matches to the hijacker's description, and the reasoning that "a fugitive accused of
mass murder Mass murder is the violent crime of murder, killing a number of people, typically simultaneously or over a relatively short period of time and in close geographic proximity. A mass murder typically occurs in a single location where one or more ...
has nothing to lose". After his capture in 1989, List denied any involvement in the Cooper hijacking: no substantial evidence implicates him, and the FBI no longer considers him a suspect. List died in prison in 2008.


Ted Mayfield

Theodore Ernest Mayfield (1935–2015) was a
Special Forces Special forces or special operations forces (SOF) are military units trained to conduct special operations. NATO has defined special operations as "military activities conducted by specially designated, organized, selected, trained and equip ...
veteran, pilot, competitive skydiver, and skydiving instructor. He served prison time in 1994 for
negligent homicide Negligent homicide is a criminal charge brought against a person who, through criminal negligence, allows another person to die. Other times, an intentional killing may be negotiated down to this lesser charge as a compromised resolution of a mur ...
after two of his students died when their parachutes failed to open and was later found indirectly responsible for thirteen additional skydiving deaths due to faulty equipment and training. In 2010, he was sentenced to three years'
probation Probation in criminal law is a period of supervision over an offence (law), offender, ordered by the court often in lieu of incarceration. In some jurisdictions, the term ''probation'' applies only to community sentences (alternatives to incar ...
for piloting an airplane 26 years after losing his pilot's license and rigging certificates. He was suggested repeatedly as a suspect early in the investigation, according to FBI Agent Ralph Himmelsbach, who knew Mayfield from a prior dispute at a local airport. He was ruled out, based partly on the fact that he telephoned Himmelsbach less than two hours after Flight 305 landed in Reno to volunteer advice on standard skydiving practices and possible landing zones, as well as information on local skydivers.


Richard McCoy

Richard McCoy, Jr. (1942–1974) was an Army veteran who served two tours of duty in Vietnam, first as a demolition expert and later with the
Green Berets The United States Army Special Forces (SF), colloquially known as the "Green Berets" due to their distinctive service Berets of the United States Army, headgear, is a branch of the United States Army United States Army Special Operations Comm ...
as a helicopter pilot. After his military service, he became a
warrant officer Warrant officer (WO) is a Military rank, rank or category of ranks in the armed forces of many countries. Depending on the country, service, or historical context, warrant officers are sometimes classified as the most junior of the commissioned ...
in the Utah National Guard and an avid recreational skydiver, with aspirations of becoming a Utah State Trooper. On April 7, 1972, McCoy staged the best-known of the copycat hijackings. He boarded
United Airlines United Airlines, Inc. is a Major airlines of the United States, major airline in the United States headquartered in Chicago, Chicago, Illinois that operates an extensive domestic and international route network across the United States and six ...
' (a with aft stairs) in
Denver Denver ( ) is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Consolidated city and county, consolidated city and county, the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous city of the U.S. state of ...
,
Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...
, and, brandishing what later proved to be a paperweight resembling a hand grenade and an unloaded pistol, he demanded four parachutes and $500,000. After delivery of the money and parachutes at
San Francisco International Airport San Francisco International Airport is the primary international airport for the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. Owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco, the airport has a San Francisco mailing ...
, McCoy ordered the aircraft back into the sky and bailed out over
Provo, Utah Provo ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Utah County, Utah, United States. It is south of Salt Lake City along the Wasatch Front, and lies between the cities of Orem, Utah, Orem to the north and Springville, Utah, Springville to the south ...
, leaving behind his handwritten hijacking instructions and his fingerprints on a magazine he had been reading. He was arrested on April 9 with the ransom cash in his possession and, after trial and conviction, received a 45-year sentence. Two years later, he escaped from Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary with several accomplices by crashing a garbage truck through the main gate. Tracked down three months later in
Virginia Beach Virginia Beach (colloquially VB) is the List of cities in Virginia, most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), U.S. commonwealth of Virginia. The city is located on the Atlantic Ocean at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay in southeaster ...
, McCoy was killed in a shootout with FBI agents. In their 1991 book, ''D.B. Cooper: The Real McCoy'', parole officer Bernie Rhodes and former FBI agent Russell Calame asserted that they had identified McCoy as Cooper. They cited obvious similarities in the two hijackings, claims by McCoy's family that the tie and mother-of-pearl tie clip left on the airplane belonged to McCoy, and McCoy's own refusal to admit or deny that he was Cooper. A proponent of their claim was the FBI agent who killed McCoy. "When I shot Richard McCoy," he said, "I shot D. B. Cooper at the same time." Although there is no reasonable doubt that McCoy committed the Denver hijacking, the FBI does not consider him a suspect in the Cooper case because of mismatches in age and description (e.g., McCoy was 29 years old, with projecting ears), skydiving skill much greater than thought to be possessed by the hijacker, and credible evidence that McCoy was in Las Vegas on the day of the Portland hijacking, and at home in Utah the day after, having Thanksgiving dinner with his family. In addition, all three of the stewardesses from the Cooper hijacking were shown photographs of McCoy and agreed that he was not their hijacker. They were even able to point to specific differences in the two men, specifically that Cooper's nose wasn't as broad as McCoy's, that Cooper had more hair than McCoy, and that Cooper's ears did not protrude as much as McCoy's. McCoy's photo was also shown to the ticket agent who sold Cooper his ticket, the gate agent, and the passenger seated closest to Cooper (Bill Mitchell), and they too concluded that McCoy and Cooper were not the same. In 2024, McCoy's two children publicly stated that their father had been D. B. Cooper after a parachute was found by YouTuber Dan Gryder on the property formerly owned by McCoy's mother. Gryder claims to have handed this parachute over to the FBI, though the FBI has not confirmed this.


Sheridan Peterson

Sheridan Peterson (1926–2021) served with the Marine Corps during World War II and was employed later as a technical editor at Boeing, based in Seattle. Investigators became interested in Peterson as a suspect soon after the skyjacking because of his experience as a smokejumper and love of taking physical risks, as well as his similar appearance and age (44) to the Cooper description. His involvement in the civil rights movement and assisting refugees in Vietnam during the Vietnam War could have potentially radicalized him to pursue hijacking. Peterson often teased the media about whether he was really Cooper. Entrepreneur Eric Ulis, who spent years investigating the crime, said he was "98% convinced" that Peterson was Cooper; when pressed by FBI agents, Peterson insisted he was in Nepal at the time of the hijacking. He died in 2021. In an episode of History Channel's ''History's Greatest Mysteries'', analysis of DNA found on the tie worn by Cooper indicated that Peterson was not a match for Cooper when compared to a DNA sample from one of Peterson's living daughters. Eric Ulis has since withdrawn his allegation that Peterson could have been Cooper.


Robert Rackstraw

Robert Wesley Rackstraw (1943–2019) was a retired pilot and ex-convict who served on an Army helicopter crew and other units during the Vietnam War. He came to the attention of the Cooper task force in February 1978, after he was arrested in Iran and
deported Deportation is the expulsion of a person or group of people by a state from its Sovereignty, sovereign territory. The actual definition changes depending on the place and context, and it also changes over time. A person who has been deported or ...
to the U.S. to face explosives possession and
check kiting Check kiting or cheque kiting (spelled differently in American and British English spelling) is a form of check fraud, involving taking advantage of the float (money supply), float to make use of non-existent funds in a checking account, checking ...
charges. Several months later, while released on bail, Rackstraw attempted to fake his own death by radioing a false
mayday Mayday is an emergency procedure word used internationally as a distress signal in voice-procedure radio communications. It is used to signal a life-threatening emergency primarily by aviators and mariners, but in some countries local organiz ...
call and telling controllers that he was bailing out of a rented airplane over
Monterey Bay Monterey Bay is a bay of the Pacific Ocean located on the coast of the U.S. state of California, south of the San Francisco Bay Area. San Francisco itself is further north along the coast, by about 75 miles (120 km), accessible via California S ...
. Police later arrested him in
Fullerton, California Fullerton ( ) is a city located in northern Orange County, California, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city had a total population of 143,617. Fullerton was founded in 1887. It secured the land on behalf of the Atchison, Topeka and S ...
, on an additional charge of
forging Forging is a manufacturing process involving the shaping of metal using localized compression (physics), compressive forces. The blows are delivered with a hammer (often a power hammer) or a die (manufacturing), die. Forging is often classif ...
federal pilot certificates; the airplane he claimed to have ditched was found, repainted, in a nearby hangar. Cooper investigators noted his physical resemblance to Cooper composite sketches even though he was only 28 in 1971, military parachute training, and criminal record but eliminated him as a suspect in 1979 after no direct evidence of his involvement could be found. In 2016, Rackstraw was featured as a suspect by a
History History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...
channel program, along with a book. On September 8, 2016, Thomas J. Colbert, the author of the book, and attorney Mark Zaid filed a lawsuit to compel the FBI to release its Cooper case file by the
Freedom of Information Act Freedom of Information Act may refer to the following legislations in different jurisdictions which mandate the national government to disclose certain data to the general public upon request: * Freedom of Information Act (United States) of 1966 * F ...
.Lawsuit filed against FBI to make D.B. Cooper investigation file public
. ''The Oregonian'' (September 8, 2016), retrieved September 22, 2016.
In 2017, Colbert and a group of volunteer investigators uncovered what they believed to be "a decades-old parachute strap" at an undisclosed location in the
Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (PNW; ) is a geographic region in Western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though no official boundary exists, the most common ...
. This was followed later in 2017 with a piece of foam, which they suspected was part of Cooper's parachute backpack. In January 2018, Tom and Dawna Colbert reported that they had obtained a confession letter originally written in December 1971 containing codes that matched three units Rackstraw was a part of while in the Army. One of the Flight 305 flight attendants reportedly "did not find any similarities" between photos of Rackstraw from the 1970s and her recollection of Cooper's appearance.Dodd, J. (July 12, 2016)
Man Identified in History Channel Show as Notorious Skyjacker D.B. Cooper Denies Accusation
. People.com, retrieved December 13, 2016.
Rackstraw's attorney termed the renewed allegations "the stupidest thing I've ever heard", and Rackstraw himself told ''
People The term "the people" refers to the public or Common people, common mass of people of a polity. As such it is a concept of human rights law, international law as well as constitutional law, particularly used for claims of popular sovereignty. I ...
'' magazine, "It's a lot of xpletive and they know it is". The FBI declined further comment. Rackstraw stated in a 2017 phone interview that he lost his job over the 2016 investigations. Rackstraw said to Colbert, "I told everybody I was he hijacker, before explaining the admission was a stunt. He died in 2019.


Walter Reca

Walter R. Reca (1933–2014) was a former military paratrooper and intelligence operative. He was proposed as a suspect by his friend Carl Laurin in 2018. In 2008, Reca told Laurin via a recorded telephone call that he was the hijacker. Reca gave Laurin permission in a notarized letter to share his story after his death. He also allowed Laurin to tape their telephone conversations about the crime during a six-week period in late 2008. In over three hours of recordings, Reca shared details about his version of the hijacking. He also confessed to his niece, Lisa Story. From Reca's description of the terrain on his way to the drop zone, Laurin concluded that he landed near Cle Elum, Washington. After Reca described an encounter with a dump truck driver at a roadside cafe after he landed, Laurin located Jeff Osiadacz, who was driving his dump truck near Cle Elum the night of the hijacking and met a stranger at the Teanaway Junction Café just outside of town. The man asked Osiadacz to give his friend directions to the café by telephone, presumably to be picked up, and he complied. Laurin convinced Joe Koenig, a former member of the
Michigan State Police The Michigan State Police (MSP) is the State police (United States), state police agency for the U.S. state of Michigan. The MSP is a full-service law enforcement agency, with its sworn members having full police powers statewide. The department ...
, of Reca's guilt. Koenig later published a book on Cooper, titled ''Getting The Truth: I Am D.B. Cooper''. These claims have aroused skepticism. Cle Elum is well north and east of Flight 305's known flight path, more than north of the drop zone assumed by most analysts, and even further from Tina Bar, where a portion of the ransom money was found. Reca was a military paratrooper and private skydiver with hundreds of jumps to his credit, in contradiction to the FBI's publicized profile of an amateur skydiver at best. Reca also did not resemble the composite portrait the FBI assembled, which Laurin and Osiadacz used to explain why Osiadacz's suspicions were not aroused at the time. In response to the allegations against Reca, the FBI said that it would be inappropriate to comment on specific tips provided to them, and that no evidence to date had proved the culpability of any suspect beyond a
reasonable doubt Beyond (a) reasonable doubt is a legal standard of proof required to validate a criminal conviction in most adversarial legal systems. It is a higher standard of proof than the standard of balance of probabilities (US English: preponderance of ...
.


William Smith

In November 2018, ''
The Oregonian ''The Oregonian'' is a daily newspaper based in Portland, Oregon, United States, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the West Coast of the United States, U.S. West Coast, founded as a weekly by Tho ...
'' published an article proposing William J. Smith (1928–2018), of
Bloomfield, New Jersey Bloomfield is a township in Essex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, and an inner-ring suburb of Newark. As of the 2020 United States census, the township's population was 53,105, an increase of 5,790 (+12.2%) from the 2010 census cou ...
, as a suspect. The article was based on research conducted by an Army data analyst who sent his findings to the FBI in mid-2018. Smith, a New Jersey native, was a World War II veteran. After high school, he enlisted with the
United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...
and volunteered for combat air crew training. After his discharge, he worked for the
Lehigh Valley Railroad The Lehigh Valley Railroad was a railroad in the Northeastern United States built predominantly to haul anthracite, anthracite coal from the Coal Region in Northeastern Pennsylvania to major consumer markets in Philadelphia, New York City, and ...
and was affected by the
Penn Central Transportation Company The Penn Central Transportation Company, commonly abbreviated to Penn Central, was an American Railroad classes, class I railroad that operated from 1968 to 1976. Penn Central combined three traditional corporate rivals, the Pennsylvania Railroad, ...
's bankruptcy in 1970, the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history at that time. The article proposed that the loss of his pension created a grudge against the corporate establishment and transportation field, as well as a sudden need for money. Smith was 43 at the time of the hijacking. In his high school yearbook, a list of alumni killed in World War II lists an Ira Daniel Cooper, possibly the source for the hijacker's pseudonym. The analyst claimed that Smith's naval aviation experience would have given him knowledge of airplanes and parachutes, and his railroad experience would have helped him find railroad tracks and hop on a train to escape the area after landing. According to the analyst, aluminum spiral chips found on the clip-on tie could have come from a locomotive maintenance facility. Smith's information about the Seattle area may have come from his close friend Dan Clair, who was stationed at Fort Lewis during the war. The analyst noted that the man who claimed to be Cooper in Max Gunther's 1985 book identified himself as "Dan LeClair". Smith and Clair worked together for
Conrail Conrail , formally the Consolidated Rail Corporation, was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeastern United States between 1976 and 1999. The trade name Conrail is a portmanteau based on the company's legal name. It continues to do busine ...
at Newark's Oak Island Yard. Smith retired from that facility as a
yardmaster The yardmaster is a railroad employee in charge of a rail yard. Duties involve managing and coordinating all activities in combining rolling stock into trains, breaking down trains into individual railroad cars, and switching trains from track to ...
. The article noted that a picture of Smith on the Lehigh Valley Railroad website showed a "remarkable resemblance" to Cooper FBI sketches. The FBI said that it would be inappropriate to comment on tips related to Smith.


Duane Weber

Duane L. Weber (1924–1995) was a World War II Army veteran who served time in at least six prisons from 1945 to 1968 for burglary and forgery. He was proposed as a suspect by his widow, Jo, based primarily on a deathbed confession: three days before he died in 1995, Weber told his wife, "I am Dan Cooper." The name meant nothing to her, she said; but months later, a friend told her of its significance in the hijacking. She went to her local library to research Cooper, found Max Gunther's book, and discovered notations in the margins in her husband's handwriting. Like the hijacker, Weber drank bourbon and chain-smoked. Other circumstantial evidence included a 1979 trip to Seattle and the Columbia River, where his wife remembered him throwing a trash bag just upstream of Tina Bar. Himmelsbach said, "
eber Eber (; ; ) is an ancestor of the Ishmaelites and the Israelites according to the Generations of Noah in the Book of Genesis () and the Books of Chronicles (). Lineage Eber (Hebrew: Ever) was a great-grandson of Noah's son Shem and the father ...
does fit the physical description (and) does have the criminal background that I have always felt was associated with the case", but did not believe Weber was Cooper. The FBI eliminated Weber as an active suspect in July 1998 when his fingerprints did not match any of those processed in the hijacked plane, and no other direct evidence could be found to implicate him. Later, his DNA also failed to match the samples recovered from Cooper's tie.


Similar hijackings

Cooper was among the first to attempt air piracy for personal gain; eleven days before Cooper's hijack, Canadian Paul Joseph Cini had hijacked an
Air Canada Air Canada is the flag carrier and the largest airline of Canada, by size and passengers carried. Air Canada is headquartered in the borough of Saint-Laurent in the city of Montreal. The airline, founded in 1937, provides scheduled and cha ...
DC-8 over Montana, but was overpowered by the crew when he put down his shotgun to strap on his parachute. Encouraged by Cooper's apparent success, fifteen similar hijackings—all unsuccessful—were attempted in 1972. Some examples from that year: * Richard Charles LaPoint, an Army veteran from Boston, boarded Hughes Airwest Flight 800 at
McCarran International Airport Harry Reid International Airport , formerly known as McCarran International Airport, is the primary international airport serving the Las Vegas Valley, a metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Nevada. It is located south of downtown Las Vega ...
in Las Vegas on January 20. Brandishing what he claimed was a bomb while the
DC-9 The McDonnell Douglas DC-9 is an American five-abreast, single-aisle aircraft designed by the Douglas Aircraft Company. It was initially produced as the Douglas DC-9 prior to August 1967, after which point the company had merged with McDonnell A ...
was on the taxiway, he demanded $50,000, two parachutes, and a helmet. After releasing the 51 passengers and two flight attendants, he ordered the airplane on an eastward trajectory toward Denver, then bailed out over the treeless plains of northeastern Colorado. Authorities, tracking the locator-equipped parachute and his footprints in the snow and mud, apprehended him a few hours later. * Richard McCoy Jr., a former Army Green Beret, hijacked a
United Airlines United Airlines, Inc. is a Major airlines of the United States, major airline in the United States headquartered in Chicago, Chicago, Illinois that operates an extensive domestic and international route network across the United States and six ...
727-100 on April 7 after it left Denver, diverted it to San Francisco, then bailed out over Utah with $500,000 in ransom money. He landed safely and was arrested two days later. * Frederick Hahneman used a handgun to hijack an
Eastern Air Lines Eastern Air Lines (also colloquially known as Eastern) was a major airline in the United States that operated from 1926 to 1991. Before its dissolution, it was headquartered at Miami International Airport in an unincorporated area of Miami-Dade ...
727 in
Allentown, Pennsylvania Allentown (Pennsylvania Dutch language, Pennsylvania Dutch: ''Allenschteddel'', ''Allenschtadt'', or ''Ellsdaun'') is a city in eastern Pennsylvania, United States. The county seat of Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, Lehigh County, it is the List o ...
, on May 7, demanded $303,000, and eventually parachuted into his native Honduras. A month later, with the FBI in pursuit and a $25,000 bounty on his head, he surrendered at the American embassy in
Tegucigalpa Tegucigalpa ( )—formally Tegucigalpa, Municipality of the Central District ( or ''Tegucigalpa, M.D.C.''), and colloquially referred to as ''Tegus'' or ''Teguz''—is the capital and largest city of Honduras along with its sister city, Comaya ...
. After being given a life sentence in September 1972, he was paroled in 1984. * Robb Heady, a 22-year-old former Army paratrooper hijacked United Airlines Flight 239 from Reno to San Francisco on June 2, 1972. Carrying his own parachute and using a .357 () revolver, he demanded $200,000 in ransom money. He jumped from the airplane and was captured the next morning. * Martin McNally, an unemployed service-station attendant, used a
submachine gun A submachine gun (SMG) is a magazine (firearms), magazine-fed automatic firearm, automatic carbine designed to fire handgun cartridges. The term "submachine gun" was coined by John T. Thompson, the inventor of the Thompson submachine gun, to descri ...
on June 23 to commandeer an
American Airlines American Airlines, Inc. is a major airlines of the United States, major airline in the United States headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, within the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, and is the Largest airlines in the world, largest airline in the ...
727 en route from
St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an Independent city (United States), independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Miss ...
, to
Tulsa Tulsa ( ) is the second-most-populous city in the state of Oklahoma, after Oklahoma City, and the 48th-most-populous city in the United States. The population was 413,066 as of the 2020 census. It is the principal municipality of the Tul ...
, Oklahoma, then diverted it eastward to
Indiana Indiana ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Michigan to the northwest, Michigan to the north and northeast, Ohio to the east, the Ohio River and Kentucky to the s ...
and bailed out with $500,000 in ransom. McNally lost the ransom money as he exited the aircraft, but landed safely near
Peru, Indiana Peru is a city in, and the county seat of, Miami County, Indiana, Miami County, Indiana, United States. It is north of Indianapolis. The population was 11,073 at the 2020 census, making it the most populous community in Miami County. Peru is loc ...
, and was apprehended a few days later in a
Detroit Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...
suburb. When interviewed in a 2020 podcast retrospective, McNally said he had been inspired by Cooper. With the advent of universal luggage searches in 1973 (see
Airport security Airport security includes the techniques and methods used in an attempt to protect passengers, staff, aircraft, and airport property from malicious harm, crime, terrorism, and other threats. Aviation security is a combination of measures and hum ...
), the general incidence of hijackings dropped dramatically. There were no further notable Cooper imitators until July 11, 1980, when Glenn K. Tripp seized Northwest Orient Flight 608 at Seattle-Tacoma Airport, demanding $600,000 ($100,000 by an independent account), two parachutes, and the assassination of his boss. A quick-thinking flight attendant drugged Tripp's alcoholic drink with Valium. After a ten-hour standoff, during which Tripp reduced his demands to three cheeseburgers and a ground vehicle in which to escape, he was apprehended. Tripp attempted to hijack the same Northwest flight on January 21, 1983, and this time demanded to be flown to Afghanistan. When the airplane landed in Portland, he was shot and killed by FBI agents.


Aftermath


Airport security

Despite the initiation of the federal Sky Marshal Program the previous year, 31 hijackings were committed in U.S. airspace in 1972; 19 of them were for the specific purpose of extorting money. In 15 of the extortion cases, the hijackers also demanded parachutes. In early 1973, the FAA began requiring airlines to search all passengers and their bags. Amid multiple lawsuits charging that such searches violated Fourth Amendment protections against search and seizure, federal courts ruled that they were acceptable when applied universally and when limited to searches for weapons and explosives. Only two hijackings were attempted in 1973, both by psychiatric patients; one hijacker, Samuel Byck, intended to crash the airliner into the
White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest (Washington, D.C.), NW in Washington, D.C., it has served as the residence of every U.S. president ...
to kill President Nixon.


Aircraft modifications

Due to multiple "copycat" hijackings in 1972, the FAA required that the exterior of all aircraft be fitted with a spring-loaded device, later dubbed the " Cooper vane", that prevents lowering of the aft airstair during flight. The device consists of a flat blade of aluminum mounted on a pivot, which is spring-loaded to stay out of the way of the door when the craft is at rest, but aerodynamically rotates into position to prevent the door from being opened when the airplane is traveling at flight speeds. Operation of the vane is automatic and cannot be overridden from within the aircraft. As a direct result of the hijacking, the installation of
peephole A peephole, peekhole, spyhole, doorhole, magic eye, magic mirror or door viewer is a small, round opening through a door from which a viewer on the inside of a dwelling may "peek" to see directly outside the door. The lenses are made and arr ...
s was mandated in all cockpit doors; this enables the cockpit crew to observe passengers without opening the cockpit door.


Subsequent history of N467US

In 1978, the hijacked 727-100 aircraft was sold by Northwest Orient to
Piedmont Airlines Piedmont Airlines, Inc. ( ) is an American regional airline headquartered at the Salisbury Regional Airport in Wicomico County, Maryland, near the Salisbury, Maryland, city of Salisbury. The airline is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the American ...
, where it was re-registered N838N and continued in domestic carrier service. In 1984, it was purchased by the charter company
Key Airlines Key Airlines was founded as Thunderbird Airlines in 1964 and then changed its name in 1969. The airline took over Sun Valley Airlines in 1972 and became known as Sun Valley Key Airlines for several years until reverting to the Key Airlines name. T ...
, re-registered N29KA, and incorporated into the Air Force's civilian charter fleet that shuttled workers between
Nellis Air Force Base Nellis Air Force Base ("Nellis" colloquialism, colloq.) is a United States Air Force military installation, installation in southern Nevada. Nellis hosts Aerial warfare, air combat exercises such as Exercise Red Flag and close air support exerc ...
and the Tonopah Test Range during the F-117 Nighthawk development program. In 1996, the aircraft was scrapped for parts in a Memphis
aircraft boneyard An aircraft boneyard or aircraft graveyard is a storage area for aircraft which are retired from service. Most aircraft at boneyards are either kept for storage continuing to receive some maintenance or parts of the aircraft are removed for reus ...
.


In popular culture

Himmelsbach famously termed Cooper a "rotten sleazy crook", but his bold and unusual crime inspired a cult following that was expressed in song, movies, and literature. Novelty shops sold t-shirts emblazoned with "D. B. Cooper, Where Are You?" Restaurants and bowling alleys in the Pacific Northwest hold regular Cooper-themed promotions and sell tourist souvenirs. A "Cooper Day" celebration has been held at the Ariel General Store and Tavern each November since 1974 with the exception of 2015, the year its owner, Dona Elliot, died. An annual convention, known as CooperCon, is held every year in late November in Seattle, Washington. The event, founded by Cooper researcher Eric Ulis in 2018, is a multi-day gathering of Cooper researchers and enthusiasts. Originally held in Vancouver, Washington, it was relocated to Seattle beginning in 2023. CooperCon replaced the annual D. B. Cooper Days, which ended when the owner of the Ariel Store Pub died and the pub was forced to close.


See also

*
Cold case ''Cold Case'' is an American police procedural crime drama television series. It ran on CBS from September 28, 2003, to May 2, 2010. The series revolved around a fictionalized Philadelphia Police Department division that specializes in invest ...
*
Gentleman thief A gentleman thief, gentleman burglar, lady thief, or phantom thief is a stock character in fiction. A gentleman or lady thief is characterised by impeccable manners, charm, courtesy, and the avoidance of physical force or intimidation to stea ...
* List of aircraft hijackings *
List of fugitives from justice who disappeared This is a list of fugitives from justice, notable people who disappeared or evaded capture while being sought by law enforcement agencies in connection with a crime, and who are currently sought or were sought for the duration of their presumed ...


Footnotes


References


Bibliography

* * * * * — Disclaimer: Large amounts of Gunther's content based on alleged interviews with a woman known as "Clara", who claimed to have discovered an injured Cooper two days after the hijacking and lived with him until he died a decade later. This material is considered by the FBI and others as a hoax or fabrication, whether by Gunther or "Clara". For critical analysis, ''see'' * * (Himmelsbach was the FBI's chief investigator on the case until his retirement in 1980; "Norjak" is FBI shorthand for the Cooper hijacking.) * (Straightforward accounting of official information and evidence.)


Further reading

*


External links


FBI Reading Room Files of the D.B. Cooper Case
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cooper, D. B. 1971 crimes in the United States 20th-century American criminals Accidents and incidents involving the Boeing 727 Aviation accidents and incidents in the United States in 1971 Aviation in Nevada Aviation in Oregon Aviation in Washington (state) Fugitives wanted by the United States Hijackers Missing air passengers Missing person cases in Oregon Missing American people Missing fugitives Northwest Airlines accidents and incidents November 1971 in the United States Parachuting in the United States Portland International Airport Possibly living people Reno–Tahoe International Airport Seattle–Tacoma International Airport Unidentified American criminals Unsolved crimes in the United States Year of birth unknown Crimes adapted into films