D.B. Cooper

Outlaw / Missing Person

D.B. Cooper was the world's most famous jumping skyjacker. The mysterious passenger, who bought a ticket using the name Dan Cooper, boarded a Northwest Orient flight in Portland, Oregon on 24 November 1971 -- the eve of Thanksgiving. Once aloft he threatened to blow up the plane and demanded $200,000 and four parachutes. After the plane landed at Seattle-Tacoma Airport and his demands were met, Cooper ordered the pilot of the 727 to take off and head for Mexico, flying at 10,000 feet. Cooper jumped from the rear of the plane somewhere over Washington state, taking the cash with him. Despite exhaustive searches, Cooper's body was never found and his whereabouts are unknown.

Extra credit: The hijacker actually called himself Dan Cooper; a reporter later heard an investigator mention a "D.B. Cooper," and the name stuck... In 1980, a child digging in the sand beside the Columbia River near Vancouver, Washington dug up $5800 of Cooper's money in a bundle of $20 bills. (The FBI had recorded the serial numbers.) That's the only Cooper cash found so far... Cooper smoked; his brand of cigarettes was Raleigh... The 1981 movie The Pursuit of D.B. Cooper starred Treat Williams and Robert Duvall in a fictionalized version of Cooper's story... Northwest Orient is now known as Northwest Airlines.

Cooper appears with Chandra Levy in our loop on Disappearing Acts... Another famous parachutist was U.S. Army Captain Albert Berry.

Blog posts mentioning D.B. Cooper:
Putting the Cooper 'Chute to Bed 'Chute Not Cooper's, Says Expert "I Think They're Barking Up the Wrong Tree" D.B. Cooper's Parachute Found? D.B. Cooper's Tattered Cash FBI: D.B. Cooper Wore J.C. Penney Is This Man D.B. Cooper?