A BYTE OUT OF HISTORY
The D. B. Cooper Mystery
11/24/06
On the afternoon of November 2435 years ago Fridaya non-descript man calling himself Dan Cooper approached the counter of Northwest Orient Airlines in Portland, Oregon. He used cash to buy a one-way ticket on Flight #305, bound for Seattle, Washington.
Thus began one of the great unsolved mysteries in FBI history. Cooper was a quiet man who appeared to be in his mid-forties, wearing a business suit with a black tie and white shirt. He ordered a drinkbourbon and sodawhile the flight was waiting to take off. A short time after 3:00 p.m., he handed the stewardess a note indicating that he had a bomb in his briefcase and wanted her to sit with him.
The stunned stewardess did as she was told. Opening a cheap attaché case, Cooper showed her a glimpse of a mass of wires and red colored sticks and demanded that she write down what he told her. Soon, she was walking a new note to the captain of the plane that demanded four parachutes and $200,000 in twenty dollar bills.
When the flight landed in Seattle, the hijacker exchanged the flights 36 passengers for the money and parachutes. Cooper kept several crewmembers, and the plane took off again, ordered to set a course for Mexico City. Somewhere between Seattle and Reno, a little after 8:00 p.m., the hijacker did the incredible: he jumped out of the back of the plane with a parachute and the ransom money.
The pilots landed safely, but Cooper had disappeared into the night and his ultimate fate remains a mystery to this day. The FBI learned of the crime in flight and immediately opened an extensive investigation that lasted many years.
Calling it NORJAK, for Northwest hijacking, we interviewed hundreds of people, tracked leads across the nation, and scoured the aircraft for evidence. By the five-year anniversary of the hijacking, wed considered more than 800 suspects and eliminated all but two dozen from consideration.
One person left on our list, Richard Floyd McCoy is still a favorite suspect among many. We tracked down and arrested McCoy for a similar airplane hijacking and escape by parachute less than five months after Coopers flight. But McCoy was later ruled out because he didnt match the nearly identical physical descriptions of Cooper provided by two flight attendants and for other reasons.
Or perhaps Cooper didnt survive his jump from the plane. After all, the parachute he used couldnt be steered, his clothing and footwear were unsuitable for a rough landing, and he had jumped into a wooded area at night, a dangerous proposition for a seasoned prowhich evidence suggests Cooper was not. This theory was given an added boost in 1980 when a young boy found a rotting package full of $20 bills ($5,800 in all) that matched the ransom money serial numbers.
Where did D.B. come from? It was apparently a myth created by the press. We did question a man with the initials D. B. but he wasnt the hijacker. The daring hijack and disappearance remain an intriguing mysteryfor law enforcement and amateur sleuths alike.
To read more about the NORJAK investigation, see the files on our Freedom of Information Act website. Fair warning: you might get hooked on the case!
Editors note: See our updated story of December 31, 2007, for more information and photos on the case.
LINK:
http://www.fbi.gov/page2/nov06/cooper112406.htm
I am just reading your post. I came back to this thread because I read an article in our paper yesterday which stated that the FBI is looking into this case again. I thought about leftcoast while reading the article.
