On November 24, 1971, Dan Cooper arrived at Northwest Orient Airlines in Portland, Oregon. He booked a flight to Seattle which was only 30 minutes north. When boarding the plane, Cooper was described as a middle-aged man between the height of 5'10 — 6'0 feet. He sat in seat 18C, smoked a cigarette, and ordered a bourbon and soda. He apparently wore a dark suit, a white collared shirt, a tie, and a raincoat.

After takeoff around 2:50 pm, Cooper handed the flight attendant a note, which she brushed off as a businessman's phone number. She dropped it into her purse until Cooper said, "Miss, you'd better look at that note. I have a bomb." The exact words on the note are unknown as Cooper reclaimed it later on, but it explained that he did indeed have a bomb.

The flight attendant was ordered to sit by the man and he showed her his bag—she saw eight red cylinders with wires and a battery. Cooper wanted $200,000, four parachutes, and a fuel truck standing by in Seattle. The flight attendant, named Florence Schaffner, informed the pilot, William Scott, who then called the local federal authorities. When Florence returned to Cooper, he was wearing dark sunglasses.

The pilot told the other 36 passengers that there would be a delay before landing in Seattle due to a minor mechanical difficulty. The president of the plane company told the employees to cooperate with the hijacker and confirmed that the ransom would be paid. The plane circled around Puget Sound for two hours before all of Cooper's demands were met. Florence stayed that despite being a hijacker, he was calm, polite, well-spoken, and not consistent with criminal stereotypes. Another flight attendant named Tina Mucklow commented, "He wasn't nervous. He seemed rather nice. He was never cruel or nasty. He was thoughtful and calm all the time." Cooper even paid his drink tab and offered to request meals for the flight attendants after stopping in Seattle.

The money was collected by the FBI but Cooper refused to use military-issued parachutes, instead wanting civilian parachutes. At 5:40 pm the plane landed in Seattle. Cooper told the pilot to move the jet to a vacant area in the apron, otherwise known as the place where planes load and unload passengers. The money was delivered to Cooper by Al Lee, the operations manager, and everyone except the pilots were instructed to leave the plane immediately after.

Cooper told the pilots his flight plan: they were to fly southwest toward Mexico City at minimum speed. Due to this, they would have to refuel in Reno, Nevada. The plane took off and eventually refueled as agreed upon. At 7:00 pm, the jet was back in the sky. Five people were now on board: Cooper, pilot William Scott, co-pilot Rataczak, flight engineer H. E. Anderson, and flight attendant Tina Mucklow. Unbeknownst to Cooper, two fighter aircrafts were following above and below the plane out of sight. Eventually, five total jets were trailing the hijacked plane.

After nearly another hour, Tina watched Cooper wrap something around his waist before leaving the cockpit and closing the door. At 8:00 pm, a warning light flashed, indicating that the side stairs (airstair apparatus) of the plane had been activated and opened. After the change in air pressure, the crew knew something had been opened but were told to stay in the cockpit, to which they did.

At 10:15 pm the plane finally landed at Reno Airport. FBI Agents, state troopers, sheriffs, and police surrounded the jet. After a sweep inside, Cooper was not found and they determined he'd jumped from the airstair using a parachute. Reportedly, none of the pilots trailing the hijacked plane saw Cooper jump and had no idea where he could have landed.

FBI Agents uncovered 66 unidentified fingerprints, Cooper's tie, and two of his four parachutes. They interviewed eye-witnesses and composite sketches were developed.

Over 800 suspects were questioned—all but 24 were eliminated from the investigation. A reporter confused the name as "D. B. Cooper," which was republished into many other media sources. The hijacker's name was accepted by the public as so. Police followed a lead on an Oregon man named D. B. Cooper, but were able to rule him out as a suspect.

Due to their dead ends, officials determined the exact time Cooper would have jumped from the plane: 8:13 pm above Lewis River, Southwest Washington, in a very heavy thunderstorm. Efforts to search for the man lead to no leads. Mountainous wilderness was searched by local police forces on foot and through helicopters. No trace of Cooper or his equipment were ever found.

A month after the hijacking the FBI attempted to retrieve the ransom money. They released the serial numbers and offered $25,000 for anyone able to return or find it. Two men used counterfeit bills to con a reporter into speaking with the "real hijacker" for $30,000. The money was never found.

On July 8, 2016, the FBI announced that they were suspending activity on the D. B. Cooper case. 45 years and no following leads marked it as cold.

Even if Cooper was never found, the FBI, police, and public made theories on who the man could've been. They think Cooper may have been an Air Force veteran that lived in the Seattle area. His desperate need for money would've been the motive for hijacking the plane, and knowledge on planes lead to this conclusion. Officials believe the man took his alias from a 1970s Belgian comic book series featuring the fictional hero "Dan Cooper", who was a Royal Canadian Air Force test pilot that took part in adventures such as parachuting. Seeing as the comics came from Europe but were discovered in Canada as well, the FBI guessed he was Canadian. Reportedly, he'd also asked for "negotiable American currency" from the flight attendant, which seems odd for a U.S. citizen to phrase. He apparently had no distinguishable accent, so this mostly ruled Europe out.

Just three weeks ago in November of 2018, a new suspected was revealed in the D. B. Cooper case. An anonymous researcher was motivated to find out the truth after reading a 1985 book called "D. B. Cooper: What Really Happened", which was written by Max Gunther. Gunther has been contacted in 1972 by a man claiming to be the famous hijacker, but eventually communication was been cut off between them. Ten years later, a woman named Clara told Gunther she was the widow of Dan LeClair, who had previously reached out to Gunther claiming he was the real D. B. Cooper. However, the book was seen as fiction and speculation, and an FBI Agent that had once spoken to Gunther stated that he was "highly unprofessional."

The anonymous analyst, though, was convinced the real hijacker had reached out to Gunther. He was able to track down a person named Dan Clair, a WWII veteran who died in 1990. Further research determined Dan wasn't Cooper, but the analyst suspected a friend and co-worker of Dan Clair's at Penn Central Transportation could be him. Smith, the new suspect of the analyst, died at 89 but had a yearbook that included a list of people killed in World War II: Ira Daniel Cooper was a name that stuck out.

The analyst found that Smith had served in the U.S. Navy, and worked on railroads with Clair before in New Jersey. He hypothesized that Smith used his friend's name to hide his identity. He speculated that Smith and his wife, Dolores, may have been in on the hijacking. Dolores retired at the young age of 54.

The researcher pointed out that the tie Cooper used had metals that led investigators to believe Cooper may have been a Boeing employee. However, those working on railroads could've used similar traces of metals. Gunther's book also added that LeClair went to a skydiving facility near LA in 1971.

However, this isn't the only theory. Some more made by other researchers included:

An Indiana Army veteran revealed in August he used his code-breaking skills to determine that former military pilot Robert Rackstraw was the hijacker. The veteran claimed to have solved codes printed on letters allegedly written by Cooper in 1971 and 1972.

Rackstraw has previously denied being Cooper and was officially cleared by the FBI in the 1980s.

William R. Reca was also thought to be Cooper. Michigan publisher Principia Media claimed in May that Reca, a former military paratrooper and intelligence operative, was the hijacker. It wasn't clear if Reca was alive.

After the most popular hijacking in human history, the case has still been unsolved and no one really knows what happened. With new information and theories coming out today, do you think this could be solved? Or is it destined to be a cold case forever?

My Opinion:

I think this is such a crazy story and I honestly want to watch a documentary about it!!! Like ahh it's so interesting and I can't believe it's still unsolved and like??? I want to look into this?? I wish I could?? Agh, INSANE.

Anyway, yeah, I love this theory and it's honestly THRILLING and ahhh yes yes yes please comment and tell me your opinions and theories and yeah I wanna hear!!

Stay tuned!

Interest Rate: 10/10
Truth Rate: 10/10