The DB Cooper Mystery



Posted: Tuesday, September 22, 2009

by Brant Reed

On a cold Wednesday afternoon, the day before Thanksgiving 1971, a man approached the counter of Northwest Orient Airlines and paid $18.52 for a one-way ticket to Tacoma Airport in Seattle . The passenger said his name was Dan Cooper. He wore a narrow brim hat, black sunglasses, dark suit, pressed white collared shirt, black necktie with a mother of pearl tie pin and leather street shoes. The man carried a raincoat and a brief case. He looked to be in his mid-forties and was approximately six feet tall and weighed one hundred and eighty pounds. The ticket agent assigned him seat 18C, and he was scheduled to depart on a thirty minute flight, to Tacoma Airport on a Boeing 727-100, at 4:35pm.

Shortly after takeoff, the man handed a note to a flight attendant. She didn't immediately read the note. He got her attention and informed her there was a bomb in his brief case, and she should read his instructions right away. The attendant rushed to her work area and showed the note to another co-worker, before taking it to the cockpit to share with the pilot. Per Mr. Cooper's request, the note was returned to him by the flight attendant. For this reason, the exact wording of the note isn't known; but, the flight attendant recalled it demanded two hundred thousand dollars in random numbered twenty dollar bills and two sets of parachutes. He requested the plane not land in Seattle until his demands were met.

Upon hearing about the hijacking, the pilot contacted air traffic control. They contacted the Seattle police and Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the authorities started the process of rounding up the money and parachutes. The F.B.I. agents followed his request and provided him randomly numbered bills, but all the twenties were issued from the Federal Reserve office in San Francisco and most of them had been printed in 1969; furthermore, the agents photographed all of the money for evidence. Next the authorities tried tracking down parachutes. At a military base nearby, parachutes were available, but Cooper demanded civilian chutes with ripcords. The agents found the requested items and headed to the airport.

While waiting for his demands to be met, Cooper reportedly smoked and drank alcohol. The flight attendant described him as calm. While circling in the air, he recognized Tacoma Airport and commented about McChord Air Force Base being in the area.

Once the money and parachutes arrived at the airport, the authorities contacted the pilot and requested he land the plane. The Boeing 727 touched down at Tacoma Airport approximately 6pm, just thirty minutes behind schedule. One airline employee drove a company vehicle to the parked airplane, and delivered the parachutes and cash to the lowered rear stairs. Next, Cooper released all the passengers, except four crew members. Using a phone in the rear of the plane, he contacted the pilot and gave specific instructions on altitude, airspeed and ordered the pilot to fly towards Mexico City. Cooper had the airplane completely filled with gas, and he requested the cabin not be pressurized once in the air. At 7:45pm the Boeing 727 took off. As soon as they were airborne, Cooper ordered all crew members into the cockpit.

While in the cockpit, the crew members noticed a change in air pressure. The man known as Dan Cooper had lowered the aft stairs and jumped out of the airplane. Authorities estimate he jumped around 8:15pm into a heavy rainstorm on a very dark night. Because of the cloud cover, they weren't able to track his descent. They speculated he would have landed near Lake Merwin, north of Portland, Oregon . A couple of hours later, the Boeing 727 landed safely in Reno . F.B.I. agents searched the airplane for evidence and interviewed crew members. They found a tie, with the mother of pearl pin, two of the four parachutes and some fingerprints.

Authorities searched by air and land, but no trace of Dan Cooper, or his parachutes were ever found. They questioned and released a Portland man named D.B. Cooper who was never considered a true suspect. Once the press heard about this suspect, they associated the initials D.B. with the hijacker and the name D.B. Cooper stuck. Rewards have been offered, by the F.B.I., for anyone producing twenty dollar bills with matching serial numbers, but no matching bills have surfaced. In 1978 a hunter found a card with instructions on how to lower aft stairs of a 727 in a field near Cooper's projected landing site. Authorities believe this was the instruction card he used to open the rear of the airplane.

In 1980 approximately six thousand dollars, in twenty dollar bills, was discovered by a young boy, just a couple of inches under the earth's surface, on the banks of the Columbia River . The F.B.I. compared the serial numbers of this money with the ransom money and came up with a match. The kid had found a small portion of D.B. Cooper's ransom money. Experts believe this found money proves Cooper didn't survive the jump, because a man willing to go to these extremes for a ransom would have never left any of it behind.

Almost forty years have passed since that cold November evening, and the story of D.B. Cooper has remained as mysterious as his crime. Maybe it's our fascination with the remarkable jump Cooper attempted, or maybe society likes the idea of an individual pulling off the perfect crime. Whatever the reason, this is one mystery that will continue to intrigue and inspire discussion as long as D.B. Cooper's body and parachutes remain missing.

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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)
» left by Lee Beatty from St. Louis, Missouri 2 years 229 days ago.
Good afternoon.
 
Enough, already! The mystery is no longer a mystery.
 
Please, please, please, will someone take a look at a book called "Alive, Alaska"?
 
Briefly, the book is a comical look at the story (fictional? Not so, I say) of a young African-American named Roland David Hunter. The man was hard-work, determined, the true definition of a "law-abiding citizen"....yet, he was lonely beyond lonely, sad, depressed and suicidal.
 
He was close to taking his own life when God intervened.
 
Roland saved the life of a man that "rewarded" him with an all-expenses paid vacation to a very remote area of Alaska.
 
This had long been a dream of Roland's and it picked his spirits up, to put it mildly.
 
The story, however, is about what Roland discovered while on his fishing trip.
 
Roland had everything at his disposal, including transportation to explore the many lakes and streams in Alaska. Well, one morning he took a wrong turn, happily riding along until he came to the end of a road. The road was blocked by a long, long, fence.
 
Roland's curiosity was peaked, as there was no reason for a fence to be there in the first place.
 
Bravely, he got out and walked the length of the fence, praying that he didn't run into any bears.
 
What he came across was a slew of beautiful mansions on this enclosed property, exclusive and very secluded from prying eyes.
 
There were (are) some very interesting people living in this area.
 
But, the owner of this wide expanse had been there since the early seventies.  He bought the property dirt cheap, paid cash for it, had two homes built for himself, fenced the place in, then opened it up to others just as reclusive as himself.
 
The people that moved in are all stories by themself.
 
But the name of the owner of that area, aptly named "Alive, Alaska"?
 
Mr. D.B. Cooper.
 
That's right. Mr. D.B. Cooper.
 
That was in the mid to late nineties. Is he still alive? No telling. You'd have to ask a very happy Roland David Hunter, who moved up to "Alive, Alaska" at the request of the residents.
 
You see, these are some very famous people who "should" be dead. They've "died" young or suspiciously, then somehow relocated to "Alive, Alaska".
 
Roland discovered this little secret and he knew that he'd found the goldmine of all stories.
 
But, that's why you need to read the book
 
Please Google the book, "Alive, Alaska".
 
Trust me, it's not just another fantasy.
 
Thank you.
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