On November 24, 1971, Dan Cooper boarded a Northwest Orient Airlines flight and demanded and received a $200,000. On the return flight he parachuted into the forest and has never been seen again. The disappearance of D.B. Cooper is one of the greatest aviation stories of all time because to this day, nobody knows if he really succeeded.
It was Thanksgiving Eve at the Portland International Airport (PIA) when the man calling himself Dan Cooper walked up to the Northwest Airlines ticket counter and purchased a one-way ticket on flight 305 to the Seattle-Tacoma (Sea-Tac) airport with a $20 bill. This nicely dressed middle aged man with no discernable accent was about to skyjack the aircraft departing at gate 52. At a little past four in the afternoon, Cooper sat in the back of the 727 piloted by Capt. William Scott. He had row 18 to himself with the plane being lightly loaded. Shortly before the 4:35 takeoff, he passed a note to stewardess Flo Schaffner asking for four parachutes, $200,000 in unmarked bills, and "no funny stuff." The note also mentioned that Cooper had a bomb. The exact wording is not really know because he took the note with him when he left the plane. The stewardess first thought he was passing her a note asking for her phone number and pocketed it. She didn't read the note until they tookoff and turned off the seatbelt signs. When a startled Ms. Schaffner finally read the note, she made the flight crew aware of the situation and they immediately contacted airline and airport officials. Schaffner was sent back to row 18 to see if she could tell if he really had a bomb. Cooper briefly opened the briefcase and the stewardess later recalled she saw some red cylinders and wires. Everyone took the threat seriously from then on and all future communications with Cooper were conducted either through notes or orally but always passed through one of the stewardesses. He requested four parachutes and Law enforcement officials were concerned that the request for that many parachutes might mean either that he had accomplices or that he intended to take hostages with him. Many feel that he wanted them to be unsure whether or not an innocent person would be wearing one to ensure that none of the parachutes would intentionally fail. The plane circled above the Seattle airport until a call from the FBI at 5:24 p.m. indicated they were able to come up with the parachutes and money. Though the bills were indeed unmarked, the FBI had used the circling time to use a high-speed copy machine to commit images of all 10,000 $20 bills to microfilm to aid in creating a list of the serial numbers later. The plane landed at Sea-Tac at 5:40 and though the plane was now 65 minutes into its 45 minute flight due to the circling, the passengers were still unaware that they had been hijacked. Cooper allowed them to go and all but the flight crew and one of the flight attendants left. The pilot later recalled that the crew could have left as they were all out of the line of site of Cooper for a time but he was unable to get the attention of the flight attendant in the first class section without the risk of Cooper hearing him. The money and parachutes were delivered to the plane and Cooper then demanded to be flown to Mexico. Knowing that he would be jumping out of the back of the plane, he also demanded that the pilot, which was actually co-pilot William Rataczak, fly with landing gear down, flaps set to 15-degrees, to not exceed 170 miles per hour and not to fly above 10,000 feet. The plane was refueled but even with a full load of fuel, the 727 wouldn't be able to make it to Mexico from Seattle with the flaps down (which made the plane less aerodynamic and thus less efficient) so Cooper had little choice but to agree to a refueling stop in Reno, Nevada. The plane departed for Reno at 7:44 p.m. and Cooper soon asked the only remaining stewardess (Tina Mucklow Larson) how to lower the rear stairs in the back of the 727. He then ordered the stewardess to close the curtain in first class behind her and to remain with the rest of the crew in the cockpit for the remainder of the flight. A final peek before shutting the curtain revealed a skyjacker attempting to tie something around his waist. It was the last anyone ever saw of the man called Dan Cooper. In all likelihood, he was tying the 21-pound bag of money to a tether in hopes it would land first and give him some indication that the pitch-dark landing was about to occur. At around 8:00 p.m. the pilot noticed a red warning light which indicated a door was open. If this had happened at 35,000 feet, the plane would have depressurized but Cooper had wisely requested an altitude of only 10,000 feet. Though the warning light did not indicate which door had became ajar, the crew correctly deduced that the aft passenger staircase in the tail section of the plane had been forced open by the skyjacker.
The alarmed pilot asked over the intercom "Is everything OK back there? Is there anything we can do for you?" "No!" shouted Cooper and he was never heard from again. Cooper had chosen his aircraft carefully. Cooper must have been looking for a pre-determined place to jump because it wasn't until 8:11 p.m. that the plane felt bumps which investigators have always assumed were the result of Cooper jumping and the aft stairs moving from his weight. The Air Force sent a pair of F-106s from McChord Air Base in pursuit and they were able to stay within five miles of the aircraft but they did not see anyone leave the plane. FBI agent Ralph Himmelsbach, who was to lead the subsequent investigation for nearly a decade, attempted to follow in a helicopter but was unable to catch up to the plane. Still, the FBI did not know that he had jumped for sure until they searched the plane after it landed in Reno. There was no trace of Cooper except for two parachutes (one was missing some of the nylon cords - possibly used by Cooper to secure the money bag to his waist), the remains of several Raleigh cigarettes, and the tie and tie clip he was wearing. He parachuted from 10,000 feet at 196 miles per hour into the blackness of the Thanksgiving Eve storm with temperatures outside the plane at 7 below and the wind chill at a toasty 70 below zero wearing nothing more than a suit, an overcoat, loafers, and a parachute. At that speed, the loafers would have been gone almost immediately. However, there is no reason to suspect that he would be unable to survive 15 seconds of such temperatures until he landed. If he did die, it most likely would have been from the parachute failing during the skydive or from not being able to get out of the snow covered forest without food. The FBI used airplanes, helicopters, and as many as 300 men to search the area for nearly a month and others are still searching the area. They actually found bodies, but they were of people who had been missing for years. Not a trace of Dan Cooper or the money was found. Until February 10, 1980, a boy named Brian Ingram was digging a fire pit on the shore of the river northwest of Vancouver, Washington, when he found $5,800 in thrashed $20 bills. The FBI was soon able to trace the bills to the skyjacking by serial numbers. Did Cooper lose some of the money during the jump? Did he plant the money to throw investigators a bone? If he died during the jump, where is the other $194,200? We may never know. The boy was given a reward of $2760 including 15 of the original $20 bills. He reportedly bought a motorcycle and a VCR with the money. An unknown law enforcement person leaked to the media that a man named Daniel B. Cooper of Portland was being sought in connection with the crime. He was soon cleared but the name D.B. Cooper has stuck even though the skyjacker only referred to himself as Dan Cooper.
On the morning of May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted and covered much of the area with ash and perhaps permanently covered evidence that would close this case to everyone's satisfaction.
You might think Cooper's cunning plan was original, but you'd be wrong. Dan Cooper was a copycat. Just two weeks earlier in Montana Paul Cini, who declared himself a member of the IRA, tried to become a para-jacker on an Air Canada flight with a gun but was subdued by the crew as he tried to put on his parachute. Cooper instead relied on the plot of the 1970 movie Airport. He used the threat of a bomb in a briefcase instead.
He was not the last to "pull a D.B. Cooper." In 1972 alone three hijackers proved that it was possible to survive the jump from a 727 by parachuting out the back. But they were all either captured or shot dead or both. Richard Floyd McCoy was captured but escaped and was shot by an FBI agent in 1974. No longer amused, the FAA required 727s to be retrofitted with a mechanical wedge that aerodynamically locks the door from the outside while in flight. The device is nicknamed the "Cooper Vane." Regulations requiring the scanning of all luggage took effect in 1972 making carrying a bomb on board that much more difficult.
A young man with a flare for the dramatically stupid tried to copy DB Cooper's act in 1980 on a flight from Sea-Tac airport to - where else? - Portland. He wore aviator sunglasses, said he had a bomb in his briefcase, and demanded $100,000 and two parachutes. The similarities stopped there, however, as the plane never left the taxiway. After the stewardess slipped the would-be copycat a couple of Valiums, he let all the passengers go and reduced his demands to a rental car and three cheeseburgers before giving himself up.
According to a contemporary Associated Press story, the retired FBI agent who was in charge of the case during the Super70s finds the latter claim credible. Of course, the FBI would love to close a case that has embarrassed them for nearly 30 years; the case remains the only unsolved domestic skyjacking in U.S. history. Mr. Weber did somewhat resemble the FBI sketches of the suspect and he spent time in the McNeil Island prison in Steilacoom (near Seattle) in the late 60s. The FBI was unable to discount or prove the account in an investigation it conducted in 1998.
Boeing 727 (N383N, C/N 18803/137) The actual Boeing 727-051 used by Northwest that day was delivered on April 22, 1965 and registered as N467US with the FAA. Before 1982 it was sold to Piedmont Air and re-registered as N383N. It was acquired by Key Airlines in May of 1985 as N29KA. It was then acquired by WorldCorp after Key went under in 1993. According to a former member of the Key Air Operations team: "The Cooper story was well known to us as was the fact that we owned the "Cooper" B727. Sadly, the aircraft was flown for one last time (empty) to the "scrap yard" in 1993 where it was as we say 'turned into beer cans.' My boss (VP/GM of Key at the time) still has the aircraft identification plate from its last flight."
The D.B. Cooper 727 jump has been disputed for a while after the jump. Many claimed that he could not survive because of the extreme jump conditions but that was proved wrong by the World Freefall Convention. They used a Boeing 727 to take 180 skydivers to 14,000 feet where they jump out of the aft airstair at 155 knots. The price for such a jump was $59.00 (Fri - August 13th 2000). They have used the 727 at the convention for years. For more info you can do a search on World Freefall convention & 727 for many pictures and stories from skydivers who got to have this awesome thrill.
