D.B. Cooper
D.B. Cooper is one of the most recognized aliases among western felons. D.B. Cooper became famous on the eve of Thanksgiving in 1971. He has not been found dead or alive since he leaped from an airborne airliner that year.
Around 4 pm that afternoon, a man by the name of Dan Cooper went into the Portland International Airport and purchased a one-way ticket to the Seattle-Tacoma Airport for $20. He was assigned an aisle seat, 18C, for the flight that was scheduled to depart at 4:35. The jet carried 36 passengers that day, not including the pilot, Captain William Scott, the first officer Bob Rataczak, the flight engineer H.E. Anderson, and two flight attendants, Tina Mucklow and Florence Schaffner.
No one really paid any attention to Dan Cooper before takeoff. He looked like an ordinary white male who spoke without an accent. He was around 45 years old and wore a dark suit and tie. He also wore a hat and carried a dark raincoat and suitcase. He had short brown hair and brown eyes. His appearance wasn't anything out of the ordinary for American males at this time.
After the jet was airborne, Cooper handed Florence Schaffner a note. It wasn't uncommon for men traveling alone to slip phone numbers or hotel room numbers to the flight attendants. Schaffner thought this was what was happening so she just stuck the note in her pocket without even reading it. The next time she passed, Cooper motioned for her to come close. He told her she better read that note and said he had a bomb while nodding towards his suitcase.
Schaffner went to the galley to read the note. She showed the other flight attendant and both of them hurried to the cockpit to show the pilot. After he read the note, he immediately contacted air traffic control. They in turn contacted Seattle Police who informed the FBI. The FBI placed an urgent call to the airline's president, Donald Nyrop, who demanded that they comply with Cooper's demands. It is no doubt that Nyrop wanted to avoid any negative publicity that a disaster would bring.
Cooper instructed the flight attendant to bring back the note because there was potential evidence on it. This was a smart move and because of this, the exact wording of his note is unknown. Schaffner recalled that the note was hand-printed in ink demanding $200,000 in cash and two sets of parachutes. Cooper wanted these items delivered to the jet when it arrived at Seattle-Tacoma Airport and if they didn't comply with these demands, he would blow up the plane. Everyone who read the note agreed that it contained the phrase "no funny business."
Cooper moved next to the window so when Schaffner returned, she sat in his aisle seat. He opened his suitcase only wide enough for her to get a glimpse of wires and two cylinders that could have been sticks of dynamite. Then he directed her to go back to the cockpit to tell the pilot to stay in the air until the money and parachutes were ready. After receiving the message, the pilot announced over the intercom that the jet would circle before landing due to a mechanical problem. Most of the passengers were unaware of the hijacking.
Cooper was very precise about his demands for money. He wanted the $200,000 in $20 bills, which would weigh around 21 pounds. If smaller bills were used, it would add extra weight and could be dangerous for his skydive. Larger bills would weigh less but they would be more difficult to pass. He even specified that he wanted bills with serial numbers that were random, not sequential. The FBI agents gave him bills with random serial numbers but made sure that all of them began with the code letter L.
Acquiring the parachutes was a lot harder than collecting the $200,000. Tacoma's McChord Air Force Base offered to provide the parachutes but Cooper rejected this offer. He wanted civilian parachutes with user-operated ripcords, not military-issued ones. Seattle cops eventually contacted the owner of a skydiving school. His school was closed but they persuaded him to sell them four parachutes. When the officers had the parachutes, they hurried to the Seattle-Tacoma Airport.
Cooper's hijacking note did not directly explain his plan to skydive from the plane but his demands led officials to that assumption. Since he had asked for an extra parachute, they assumed he planned to take a passenger or crew member with him as an airborne hostage. They thought about using dummy parachutes for the exchange with Cooper but they couldn't risk the life of a civilian.
At 5:24 PM, the ground team had the cash and the parachutes so they radioed Captain Scott and told him they were ready for his arrival. Cooper ordered that they taxi to a remote, well-lit area after they landed. He had the cabin lights dimmed and ordered that no vehicle should approach the plane. He also ordered that the person who was bringing the cash and parachutes come unaccompanied.
A Northwest airline employee drove a company vehicle near the plane. Cooper ordered flight attendant Tina Mucklow to lower the aft stairs. The employee carried two parachutes at a time to the stairs and handed them over to Mucklow. Then the employee brought the cash over in a large bank bag. Once the demands were met, Cooper released the 36 passengers and flight attendant Florence Schaffner. He did not release the other flight attendant Tina Mucklow or the three men in the cockpit.
An FAA official contacted Scott and asked Cooper for permission to come aboard the jet. The official apparently wanted to warn him of the dangers and consequences of air piracy. Cooper denied his request. Cooper had Mucklow reading over the instruction card for operation of the aft stairs. When he questioned her about them, she said she didn't think they could be lowered during flight. He said she was wrong.
Cooper had chosen this flight not only for location, but because of the type of jet that was used. He knew a lot about the Boeing 727-100. Cooper ordered the pilot to remain below an altitude of 10,000 feet and to keep the airspeed below 150 knots. An experienced skydiver would easily be able to dive at 150 knots. The jet was lightweight and would have no problem flying at such a slow speed through the dense air at 10,000 feet.
Cooper told the crew that he wanted to go to Mexico City. The pilot explained that at the altitude and airspeed he wanted to travel, the jet wouldn't be able to travel more than 1,000 miles even with 52,000 gallons of fuel. With this in mind, they agreed to make a mid-stop to refuel in Reno, Nevada. Before leaving Seattle, Cooper ordered the jet be refueled. He knew that the Boeing 727-100 could take in 4,000 gallons of fuel a minute. After 15 minutes when they weren't done refueling, Cooper demanded an explanation. The fuel crew completed the job shortly afterwards. Captain Scott and Cooper negotiated a low-altitude route called Vector 23. This route allowed the jet to fly safely west of the mountains even at the low altitude that Cooper demanded.
Cooper also told the Captain that the cabin should not be pressurized. He knew that a person can breathe normally at 10,000 feet. If the cabin had equalized pressure inside and out, then it would prevent a violent gust of wind when the aft stairs were lowered. After all of the flight details were figured out, the plane took off at 7:46 PM.
After takeoff, Cooper ordered the flight attendant and the rest of the crew to stay in the cockpit. There was no peephole in the cockpit door or remote cameras installed in the jet at the time. The crew had no idea what Cooper was doing out there. At 8 PM, a red light gave warning that a door was open. Scott asked Cooper over the intercom if there was anything they could do for him. He replied with an angry "No!" Those were the last words anyone ever heard from Dan Cooper.
At 8:24 PM, the jet genuflected as the jet's nose dipped first followed by a correcting dip in the tail end. Scott made sure to note the spot where the dip took place, 25 miles north of Portland, near the Lewis River. The crew assumed that the aft stairs had been lowered and that Cooper had jumped. However, they didn't make confirmation of their assumption because they didn't want to disobey his orders to stay in the cockpit.
At 10:15 PM, the jet landed in Reno, Nevada. Scott spoke over the intercom and after receiving no response, he opened the cockpit door. The cabin was empty. Cooper, along with the money and all of his belongings, were gone. The only thing left was the second parachute. Cooper had leapt out of the jet at an approximate temperature of -7 degrees with his money strapped to his chest.
No one ever heard from D.B. Cooper again. No one has been able to prove whether or not he survived that jump. The investigation didn't turn up anything. During the hijacking, the police attempted to follow the plane and wait for someone to jump and follow that person to the ground. The first type of planes they used was F-106 fighter jets. These jets were built to go at high speeds up to 1,500 MPH. They were practically useless at slower speeds. They needed a slower-flying jet so they got the Air National Guard Lockheed T-33, but before they were able to catch up to the hijacked plane, Cooper had already jumped.
The weather was nasty that night, so the police held off the ground search until the next day. That Thanksgiving, and for several weeks afterward, an extensive search turned up no trace of the hijacker or the parachute. The police began searching criminal records for the name Dan Cooper just in case the hijacker used his real name. The police found a man name D.B. Cooper and even though this man was cleared, the name is still being used as an alias for the hijacker.
Charges for air piracy were filed in 1976 and still stand today. On February 10, 1980, an 8-year-old boy found bundles of $20 bills with serial numbers matching the ones from the Cooper stash. People believe this theory helps support the theory that Cooper didn't survive. They believe he drowned in the river and his body was hung at the bottom. The bag tied to his chest had likely decomposed over the years and some of the bundles of money had been carried upstream. The discovery of these bundles led to new searches around that area. However, an eruption of Mt. St. Helens on May 18, 1980, likely destroyed any remaining clues about the Cooper case.
Over the years, many have confessed to being Dan Cooper. The FBI has quietly checked out some of these cases but have yet to turn up anything useful. There were fingerprints found on the plane that matched none of the flight crew or passengers, so it is assumed they belonged to Dan Cooper. With this in mind, all of the people claiming to be Dan Cooper have been fingerprinted and none of them matched to the fingerprints found on the plane.
In August 2011, Marla Cooper made claims that D.B. Cooper was her uncle. She claims to have overheard her two uncles having a mysterious conversation and using walkie-talkies. She said on the day of the hijacking, they said they were going turkey hunting. The next day, her uncle L.D. Cooper came home in a bloody t-shirt claiming to have been in a car accident and her other uncle just told her they wanted to speak to Marla's father.
She says she heard them say that their money problems were over and that they hijacked a plane. However later, she said that no money was recovered since it was lost when he was falling. The two uncles wanted to return to search for the money, but Marla's father wouldn't let them since the FBI had started their search. Marla said she never heard anything else about her uncle until he died in 1999.
Lots of people have reported that D.B. Cooper is actually one of their long-lost relatives but one of the flight attendants saw a picture of Marla Cooper's uncle, L.D. Cooper, and said he looked a lot like the hijacker. Maybe Marla Cooper's uncle was the real D.B. Cooper. DNA evidence hasn't proven that yet, but as of right now, he's the best lead they have.
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