D. P. COOPER

D.P. COOPER (PART-1)

D. B. Cooper is a media epithet (actual pseudonym: Dan Cooper) used to describe an unidentified man who hijacked a Boeing 727 aircraft in United States airspace between Portland and Seattle on the afternoon of November 24, 1971. After a stop at Seattle-Tacoma airport to collect $200,000 in ransom (equivalent to $1,318,785 in 2021) and four parachutes, he leapt to an uncertain fate over southwestern Washington. Despite an extensive manhunt and a 45-year-long FBI investigation, the perpetrator’s identity and fate remain unknown. The crime remains the only unsolved air piracy in commercial aviation history. The man purchased his airline ticket using the alias Dan Cooper but, because of a news miscommunication, became known in popular lore as D. B. Cooper.

 Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305

N467US, the aircraft involved in the hijacking

Hijacking

Date                               November 24, 1971

Summary                      Hijacking

Site                                 Between Portland and Seattle

Aircraft type                  Boeing 727-51

Operator                        Northwest Orient Airlines

Registration                  N467US

Flight origin                   Portland International Airport

Destination                    Seattle-Tacoma International Airport

Occupants                     42  Passengers, 36 (including Cooper)

Crew                                6

Fatalities                         0* (Hijacker, fate unknown)

Injuries                            None* (Hijacker, fate unknown)

Survivors                        42* (Hijacker, fate unknown)

Available evidence and a preponderance of expert opinion suggest that Cooper probably did not survive his high-risk jump. The FBI maintained an active investigation for 45 years after the hijacking. Despite a case file that grew to over 60 volumes over that period, no definitive conclusions have been reached regarding Cooper's true identity or fate.

Numerous theories of widely varying plausibility have been proposed over the years by investigators, reporters, and amateur enthusiasts. A young boy discovered a small cache of banknotes from the ransom along the banks of the Columbia River in 1980, which triggered renewed interest but ultimately only deepened the mystery. The great majority of the ransom remains unrecovered.

The FBI officially suspended active investigation of the case in July 2016, but the agency continues to request that any physical evidence that might emerge related to the parachutes or the ransom money be submitted for analysis.

HIJACKING:

On Thanksgiving eve, November 24, 1971, a middle-aged man carrying a black attaché case approached the flight counter of Northwest Orient Airlines at Portland International Airport. He identified himself as "Dan Cooper" and used cash to purchase a one-way ticket on Flight 305, a 30-minute trip north to Seattle.Cooper boarded the aircraft, a Boeing 727-100 (FAA registration N467US), and took seat 18C (18E by one account, 15D by another) and ordered a drink—bourbon and soda. Eyewitnesses described a man in his mid-40s, wearing a business suit with a black tie and white shirt.

Flight 305, approximately one-third full, departed Portland on schedule at 2:50 p.m. PST. Shortly after takeoff, Cooper handed a note to Florence Schaffner, the flight attendant situated nearest to him in a jump seat attached to the aft stair door. Schaffner, assuming the note contained a lonely businessman's phone number, dropped it unopened into her purse. Cooper leaned toward her and whispered, "Miss, you'd better look at that note. I have a bomb."

The note was printed in neat, all-capital letters with a felt-tip pen. Its exact wording is unknown, because Cooper later reclaimed it, but Schaffner recalled that it mentioned the bomb and directed her to sit in the seat beside Cooper. Schaffner did as requested, then quietly asked to see the bomb. Cooper opened his briefcase long enough for her to glimpse eight red cylinders ("four on top of four") attached to wires coated with red insulation, and a large cylindrical battery. After closing the briefcase, he stated his demands: $200,000 in "negotiable American currency"; four parachutes (two primary and two reserve); and a fuel truck standing by in Seattle to refuel the aircraft upon arrival. Schaffner conveyed Cooper's instructions to the pilots in the cockpit; when she returned, Cooper was wearing dark sunglasses.

The pilot, William A. Scott (1920–2001) contacted Seattle–Tacoma Airport air traffic control, which informed local and federal authorities. The 35 other passengers were told that their arrival in Seattle would be delayed because of a "minor mechanical difficulty". Northwest Orient's president, Donald Nyrop, authorized payment of the ransom, and ordered all employees to cooperate fully with the hijacker's demands. The aircraft circled Puget Sound for approximately two hours to allow Seattle police and the FBI sufficient time to assemble Cooper's parachutes and ransom money, and to mobilize emergency personnel.

Flight attendant Tina Mucklow recalled that Cooper appeared familiar with the local terrain; at one point he remarked, "Looks like Tacoma down there," as the aircraft flew above it. He also correctly mentioned that McChord Air Force Base was only a 20-minute drive (at that time) from Seattle-Tacoma Airport. Schaffner described him as calm, polite, and well-spoken, not at all consistent with the stereotypes (enraged, hardened criminals or "take-me-to-Cuba" political dissidents) popularly associated with air piracy at the time. "He wasn't nervous," Mucklow told investigators. "He seemed rather nice. He was never cruel or nasty. He was thoughtful and calm all the time." He ordered a second bourbon and soda, paid his drink tab (and attempted to give Mucklow the change), and offered to request meals for the flight crew during the stop in Seattle.

FBI agents assembled the ransom money from several Seattle-area banks – 10,000 unmarked 20-dollar bills, most with serial numbers beginning with the letter "L" indicating issuance by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, and most from the 1963A or 1969 series – and made a microfilm photograph of each of them. Cooper rejected the military-issue parachutes offered by McChord AFB personnel, instead demanding civilian parachutes with manually operated ripcords. Seattle police obtained them from a local skydiving school.

PASSENGER RELEASE:

At 5:24 p.m. PST, Cooper was informed that his demands had been met; and at 5:39 p.m., more than an hour after sunset, the aircraft landed at Seattle-Tacoma Airport. Cooper instructed Scott to taxi the jet to an isolated, brightly lit section of the apron and close all window shades in the cabin to deter police snipers. Northwest Orient's Seattle operations manager, Al Lee, approached the aircraft in street clothes (to avoid the possibility that Cooper might mistake his airline uniform for that of a police officer) and delivered the cash-filled knapsack and parachutes to Mucklow via the aft stairs. Once the delivery was completed, Cooper allowed all passengers, Schaffner, and senior flight attendant Alice Hancock to leave the plane.

During refueling, Cooper outlined his flight plan to the cockpit crew: a southeast course toward Mexico City at the minimum airspeed possible without stalling the aircraft—approximately 100 knots (185 km/h; 115 mph)—at a maximum 10,000-foot (3,000 m) altitude. He further specified that the landing gear remain deployed in the takeoff/landing position, the wing flaps be lowered 15 degrees, and the cabin remain unpressurized. Copilot William J. Rataczak informed Cooper that the aircraft's range was limited to approximately 1,000 miles (1,600 km) under the specified flight configuration, which meant that a second refueling would be necessary before entering Mexico. Cooper and the crew discussed options and agreed on Reno, Nevada, as the refueling stop. Cooper further directed that the aircraft take off with the rear exit door open and its staircase extended. Northwest's home office objected, on grounds that it was unsafe to take off with the aft staircase deployed. Cooper countered that it was indeed safe, but he would not argue the point; he would lower it once they were airborne.

An FAA official requested a face-to-face meeting with Cooper aboard the aircraft, which was denied. The refueling process was delayed because of a vapor lock in the fuel tanker truck's pumping mechanism; a second truck was brought in to complete refueling.

BACK IN THE AIR:

At approximately 7:40 p.m., the Boeing 727 took off with only Cooper, pilot Scott, flight attendant Mucklow, copilot Rataczak, and flight engineer Harold E. Anderson on board. Two F-106 fighter aircraft from McChord Air Force Base followed behind the airliner, one above it and one below, out of Cooper's view. A Lockheed T-33 trainer, diverted from an unrelated Air National Guard mission, also shadowed the 727 before running low on fuel and turning back near the Oregon–California state line.

After takeoff, Cooper told Mucklow to join the rest of the crew in the cockpit and remain there with the door closed. As she complied, Mucklow observed Cooper tying something, possibly the money bag, around his waist. At approximately 8:00 p.m., a warning light flashed in the cockpit, indicating that the aft airstair apparatus had been activated. Rataczak offered assistance via the aircraft's intercom system, which Cooper refused. This was the last communication the crew had with him. The crew soon noticed a subjective change of air pressure, indicating that the aft door was open.

At approximately 8:13 p.m., the aircraft's tail section sustained a sudden upward movement, large enough to require trimming to bring the plane back to level flight. At approximately 10:15 p.m., Scott and Rataczak landed the 727, with the aft airstair still deployed, at Reno Airport. FBI agents, state troopers, sheriff's deputies, and Reno police surrounded the jet, as it had not yet been determined with certainty that Cooper was no longer aboard; but an armed search quickly confirmed his absence.

INVESTIGATION:

FBI agents recovered 66 unidentified latent fingerprints aboard the airliner. The agents also found Cooper's black clip-on tie, his tie clip and two of the four parachutes, one of which had been opened and two shroud lines cut from the canopy. Authorities interviewed eyewitnesses in Portland, Seattle and Reno. A series of composite sketches was developed.

Local police and FBI agents immediately began questioning possible suspects. One of the first was an Oregon man with a minor police record named D. B. Cooper, contacted by Portland police on the off chance that the hijacker had used his real name or the same alias in a previous crime. He was quickly ruled out as a suspect; but a local reporter named James Long, rushing to meet an imminent deadline, confused the eliminated suspect's name with the pseudonym used by the hijacker. A wire service reporter (Clyde Jabin of UPI by most accounts, Joe Frazier of the AP by others) republished the error, followed by numerous other media sources; the name "D. B. Cooper" became lodged in the public's collective memory.

A precise search area was difficult to define, as even small differences in estimates of the aircraft's speed, or the environmental conditions along the flight path (which varied by location and altitude), changed Cooper's projected landing point considerably. An important variable was the length of time he remained in free fall before pulling his ripcord—if indeed he succeeded in opening a parachute at all. Neither of the Air Force fighter pilots saw anything exit the airliner, either visually or on radar, nor did they see a parachute open; but at night, with extremely limited visibility and cloud cover obscuring any ground lighting below, an airborne black-clad human figure could easily have gone undetected. The T-33 pilots never made visual contact with the 727.

In an experimental re-creation, with Scott piloting the aircraft used in the hijacking in the same flight configuration, FBI agents pushing a 200-pound (91 kg) sled out of the open airstair were able to reproduce the upward motion of the tail section described by the flight crew at 8:13 p.m. It was concluded that 8:13 p.m. was the most likely jump time. At that moment the aircraft was flying through a heavy rainstorm over the Lewis River in southwestern Washington.

Initial extrapolations placed Cooper's landing zone within an area on the southernmost outreach of Mount St. Helens, a few miles southeast of Ariel, Washington, near Lake Merwin, an artificial lake formed by a dam on the Lewis River. Search efforts focused on Clark and Cowlitz counties, encompassing the terrain immediately south and north, respectively, of the Lewis River in southwest Washington. FBI agents and sheriff's deputies from those counties searched large areas of the mountainous wilderness on foot and by helicopter. Door-to-door searches of local farmhouses were also carried out. Other search parties ran patrol boats along Lake Merwin and Yale Lake, the reservoir immediately to its east. No trace of Cooper, nor any of the equipment presumed to have left the aircraft with him, was found.

The FBI also coordinated an aerial search, using fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters from the Oregon Army National Guard, along the entire flight path (known as Victor 23 in standard aviation terminology but "Vector 23" in most Cooper literature) from Seattle to Reno. Although numerous broken treetops and several pieces of plastic and other objects resembling parachute canopies were sighted and investigated, nothing relevant to the hijacking was found.

Shortly after the spring thaw in early 1972, teams of FBI agents aided by some 200 Army soldiers from Fort Lewis, along with Air Force personnel, National Guardsmen, and civilian volunteers, conducted another thorough ground search of Clark and Cowlitz counties for eighteen days in March, and then an additional eighteen days in April. Electronic Explorations Company, a marine salvage firm, used a submarine to search the 200-foot (61 m) depths of Lake Merwin. Two local women stumbled upon a skeleton in an abandoned structure in Clark County; it was later identified as the remains of Barbara Ann Derry, a teenaged girl who had been abducted and murdered several weeks before. Ultimately, the search and recovery operation—arguably the most extensive, and intensive, in U.S. history—uncovered no significant material evidence related to the hijacking.

SEARCH FOR RANSOM MONEY:

A month after the hijacking, the FBI distributed lists of the ransom serial numbers to financial institutions, casinos, racetracks, and other businesses that routinely conducted large cash transactions, and to law enforcement agencies around the world. Northwest Orient offered a reward of 15% of the recovered money, to a maximum of $25,000. In early 1972 U.S. Attorney General John N. Mitchell released the serial numbers to the general public. In 1972, two men used counterfeit 20-dollar bills printed with Cooper serial numbers to swindle $30,000 from a Newsweek reporter named Karl Fleming in exchange for an interview with a man they falsely claimed was the hijacker.

In early 1973, with the ransom money still missing, The Oregon Journal republished the serial numbers and offered $1,000 to the first person to turn in a ransom bill to the newspaper or any FBI field office. In Seattle, the Post-Intelligencer made a similar offer with a $5,000 reward. The offers remained in effect until Thanksgiving 1974, and though there were several near-matches, no genuine bills were found. In 1975 Northwest Orient's insurer, Global Indemnity Co., complied with an order from the Minnesota Supreme Court and paid the airline's $180,000 claim on the ransom money.

LATER DEVELOPMENT:

Subsequent analyses indicated that the original landing zone estimate was inaccurate: Scott, who was flying the aircraft manually because of Cooper's speed and altitude demands, later determined that his flight path was farther east than initially assumed. Additional data from a variety of sources—in particular Continental Airlines pilot Tom Bohan, who was flying four minutes behind Flight 305—indicated that the wind direction factored into drop zone calculations had been wrong, possibly by as much as 80 degrees. This and other supplemental data suggested that the actual drop zone was south-southeast of the original estimate, in the drainage area of the Washougal River.

Himmelsbach wrote, "I have to confess, if I [were] going to look for Cooper, I would head for the Washougal." The Washougal Valley and its surroundings have been searched repeatedly by private individuals and groups in subsequent years; to date, no discoveries traceable to the hijacking have been reported. Some investigators have speculated that the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens could have obliterated any remaining physical clues.

INVESTIGATION SUSPENDED:

On July 8, 2016, the FBI announced that it was suspending active investigation of the Cooper case, citing a need to focus its investigative resources and manpower on issues of higher and more urgent priority. Local field offices will continue to accept any legitimate physical evidence, related specifically to the parachutes or to the ransom money, that may emerge in the future. The 60-volume case file compiled over the 45-year course of the investigation will be preserved for historical purposes at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., and on the FBI website. All the evidence is open to the public.

PHYSICAL EVIDENCE:

Three major pieces of evidence were found on the plane: a black clip-on tie, a mother-of-pearl tie clip, and eight filter-tipped Raleigh cigarette butts. At some time after the hijacking, the cigarette butts were lost.

In November 1978, a placard printed with instructions for lowering the aft stairs of a 727 was found by a deer hunter near a logging road about 13 miles (21 km) east of Castle Rock, Washington, well north of Lake Merwin, but within Flight 305's basic flight path.

RECOVERED RANSOM MONEY:

On February 10, 1980, eight-year-old Brian Ingram was vacationing with his family on the Columbia River at a beachfront known as Tina (or Tena) Bar, about 9 miles (14 km) downstream from Vancouver, Washington, and 20 miles (32 km) southwest of Ariel. He uncovered three packets of the ransom cash as he raked the sandy riverbank to build a campfire. The bills were disintegrated, but still bundled in rubber bands. FBI technicians confirmed that the money was indeed a portion of the ransom: two packets of 100 twenty-dollar bills each, and a third packet of 90, all arranged in the same order as when given to Cooper.

The discovery launched several new rounds of conjecture and ultimately raised more questions than it answered. Initial statements by investigators and scientific consultants were founded on the assumption that the bundled bills washed freely into the Columbia River from one of its many connecting tributaries. An Army Corps of Engineers hydrologist noted that the bills had disintegrated in a "rounded" fashion and were matted together, indicating that they had been deposited by river action, as opposed to having been deliberately buried. That conclusion, if correct, supported the opinion that Cooper had not landed near Lake Merwin nor any tributary of the Lewis River, which feeds into the Columbia well downstream from Tina Bar. It also lent credence to supplemental speculation (see Later developments above) that placed the drop zone near the Washougal River, which merges with the Columbia upstream from the discovery site.

But the "free-floating" hypothesis presented its own difficulties; it did not explain the ten bills missing from one packet, nor was there a logical reason that the three packets would have remained together after separating from the rest of the money. Physical evidence was incompatible with geologic evidence: Himmelsbach observed that free-floating bundles would have had to wash up on the bank "within a couple of years" of the hijacking; otherwise the rubber bands would have long since deteriorated, an observation confirmed experimentally by the Cooper Research Team (see Subsequent FBI disclosures). Geological evidence suggested, however, that the bills arrived at Tina Bar well after 1974, the year of a Corps of Engineers dredging operation on that stretch of the river. Geologist Leonard Palmer of Portland State University found two distinct layers of sand and sediment between the clay deposited on the riverbank by the dredge and the sand layer in which the bills were buried, indicating that the bills arrived long after dredging had been completed. The Cooper Research Team later challenged Palmer's conclusion, citing evidence that the clay layer was a natural deposit. That finding, if true, favors an arrival time of less than one year after the event (based on the rubber band experiment), but does not help to explain how the bundles got to Tina Bar, nor from where they came.

More recent analysis of diatoms found on the bills suggests that the bundles found at Tina Bar were not submerged in the river or buried dry at the time of the hijacking in November 1971. Only diatoms that bloom during springtime were found, placing the date range that the money entered the water at least several months after the hijacking.

Alternative theories were advanced. Some surmised that the money had been found at a distant location by someone (or possibly even a wild animal), carried to the riverbank, and reburied there. The sheriff of Cowlitz County proposed that Cooper accidentally dropped a few bundles on the airstair, which then blew off the aircraft and fell into the Columbia River. One local newspaper editor theorized that Cooper, knowing he could never spend the money, dumped it in the river, or buried portions of it at Tina Bar (and possibly elsewhere) himself.[ No hypothesis offered to date satisfactorily explains all of the existing evidence.

In 1986, after protracted negotiations, the recovered bills were divided equally between Ingram and Northwest Orient's insurer; the FBI retained fourteen examples as evidence. Ingram sold fifteen of his bills at auction in 2008 for about $37,000.

To date, none of the 9,710 remaining bills has turned up anywhere. Their serial numbers remain available online for public search. The Columbia River ransom money and the airstair instruction placard remain the only confirmed physical evidence from the hijacking ever found outside the aircraft.