D.B. Cooper

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
This episode contains graphic content that may not be suitable
for all ages. Listener discretion is advised. If you or
someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available,
call or text nine eight eight or chat with someone
at nine eight eight lifeline dot org. Those outside of
the US, reach out to someone at your local crisis

(00:24):
center or hotline. Please do not suffer in silence. On
the afternoon of November twenty fourth, nineteen seventy one, a

(00:45):
rainy Thanksgiving eve, in Portland, Oregon, a nondescript, middle aged
man approached the Northwest Orient Airlines ticket counter at Portland
International Airport. He paid twenty dollars in cash for a
one way ticket on the two fifty pm Northwest flight
three oh five bound for Seattle. On the ticket voucher
written in neat block letters, the man gave the name

(01:08):
Dan Cooper. Before boarding, he double checked with the gait
agent that flight three oh five was indeed a Boeing
seven twenty seven to one hundred, an important detail that
would only become significant much later. Dan Cooper blended in
easily with the holiday travel crowd. He was described as
a white male in his mid forties around five feet

(01:28):
ten inches to six feet tall, with dark hair and
brown eyes. Wore the conventional business attire of the day,
a dark suit described in some accounts as russet brown,
a starched white shirt, and a slim black tie accented
by a mother of pearl tie pin. Completing his look.
Cooper carried a black briefcase and an ordinary brown paper

(01:49):
bag As he walked across the tarmac and up the
boarding stairs to the awaiting Boeing seven twenty seven. The
man showed little that was memorable, except perhaps the fact that,
despite the cloud autumn afternoon, he sported a pair of
dark horn rimmed sunglasses. Flight three oh five was a
short hop north to Seattle. About thirty minutes in the air,

(02:09):
the flight was only about one third full. Thirty seven
passengers in total were on board, including Cooper himself. The
crew of six consisted of Captain William A. Scott, First
Officer Bill Radisak, flight engineer Harold E. Anderson, and three
flight attendants Senior Stewardess Alice Hancock, and two younger attendants,

(02:30):
Florence or Flau Schaffner, aged twenty three and Tina Mucklow,
aged twenty two, Cooper took a seat in the last
row of the coach cabin, seat eighteen E, at the
rear of the plane, near the aft stairwell of the
seven twenty seven. He slipped into his aisle seat, settled back,
and lit a cigarette. In nineteen seventy one airline travels

(02:51):
still allowed smoking. Passengers nearby noticed he smoked rally filter
tipped cigarettes, an inexpensive off brand, casually resting the cigaret
in his left hand as he waited for takeoff. Before
the plane pushed back from the gate, Cooper ordered a drink,
a bourbon whiskey with soda, which he paid for in cash.
By all accounts, he was quiet, polite, and unremarkable during

(03:13):
the boarding process, essentially invisible. One fellow passenger would later
recall Flight three oh five lifted off on schedule at
two fifty pm, climbing into the overcast skies as light
rain fell over Portland. As the Boeing seven twenty seven
leveled off, Florence Shaffner, the flight attendant assigned to the
coach cabin, made her way down the aisle, checking in

(03:35):
on passengers. When she reached the lone man in the
last row, he wordlessly handed her a folded paper note.
Shaffner had no reason to think that this was anything unusual.
Attractive young stewardesses frequently received slips of paper with phone
numbers or flirtatious messages, assuming this was more of the same.
Florence pocketed the note without opening it, intending to read

(03:57):
what she presumed was a proposition. Later, as she started
to move on, the man in seat eighteen E leaned
toward her. In a low, calm voice. He said, Miss,
you'd better look at that note. I have a bomb.
In that instant, everything changed aboard flight three O five,
Florence Schaffner paused. Stunned, She slowly retrieved the note from

(04:19):
her pocket and opened it with trembling hands. The printed
message inside was short and chilling. It stated that the
plane was being hijacked, that Cooper had a bomb in
his briefcase, and it instructed her to sit beside him.
Shaffner's heart pounded as she slid into the vacant seat
next to this stranger. Trying to keep her composure. In
a shaky whisper, she managed to ask, are you kidding me?

(04:42):
But Dan Cooper was deadly serious, and he intended to
make his demands known, the quiet man in the dark
suit had just set in motion one of the most
infamous mysteries of all time. This is the story of
Dan Cooper, more commonly known as D. B. Cooper. In

(05:08):
the tense moments after Florence Shaffner read the hijacker's note,
the normal rhythm of flight three oh five gave way
to anxious uncertainty. Despite the era's more relaxed airport security,
such as no metal detectors being in use at the time,
nothing about Dan Cooper had raised alarm. During boarding. Other
passengers recalled only a quiet man sitting alone in the back.

(05:29):
He had taken off his raincoat and settled in like
any other business traveler. Tina Mucklow, the other stewardest serving
coach that day, would later describe Cooper's demeanor during the
flight's first few minutes as remarkably ordinary. She would later
recall he was not nervous, he seemed rather nice, and
he was not cruel or nasty. Indeed, as Florence Shafner

(05:49):
now sat next to him, she noticed that Dan Cooper
appeared calm and mildly observant, not outwardly agitated. In the slightest.
The crew of Flight three oh five was highly experienced.
Captain William Scott, fifty one years old, was a former
World War II pilot with thousands of flight hours under
his belt. First Officer Bill Ratazac and flight Engineer Harold

(06:11):
Anderson were also seasoned aviators. In the cabin, Alice Hancock,
the senior flight attendant, had been with the airline for years.
By contrast, Florence Shaffner and Tina Mucklow were quite young,
twenty three and twenty two years old, respectively, but had
handled their fair share of difficult passengers in the past.
As I mentioned before, unwonted advances from businessmen were a

(06:34):
common occupational hazard for attractive stewardesses in the early nineteen seventies.
They still are today, so for that reason, Florence's initial
reaction to Dan Cooper's note was shaped by this reality,
assuming it was just another flirtatious message. It wasn't until
Cooper murmured his urgent warning to her that she realized
this was no casual pick up attempt. When she opened

(06:56):
up the paper note he had handed her, Florence Shaffner's
blood ran cold. The note was written neatly in all
capital letters with a felt tip pen. Although Cooper would
later reclaim this note one of many clever tactics he
used to leave behind no evidence, Florence remembered its gist clearly,
stating I have a bomb in my briefcase. I want
you to sit by me. It also included a terrifying

(07:19):
ultimatum that if the man's demands were not met, he
was prepared to blow up the airplane. One later account
summarized Dan Cooper's message as a demand for money in
parachutes by five p m, with the warning that everyone
on board would die if the demands were not fulfilled.
In that moment, Florence Shaffner knew she was dealing not
with a flirt, but with a desperate man capable of

(07:41):
mass murder. Struggling to appear composed, Florence Shaffner slid into
the seat next to Dan Cooper as instructed. The other
passengers were oblivious to the drama. Many were reading magazines
or dozing off on the short hop to Seattle. One man,
George Labissignire, got up to use the lavatory at the rear,
just steps away from Cooper, and noticed nothing amiss. The

(08:03):
flight continued smoothly and on schedule, with no indication to
those on board that anything was wrong. The seat belt
signs were off, and the seven twenty seven cruised above
the cloudy Pacific northwest landscape as it usually did. Sitting
next to Cooper in Row eighteen, Florence tried to control
her breathing in a steady but quiet voice. She asked
to see the supposed bomb. Surprisingly, Cooper obliged. He popped

(08:27):
open his briefcase just enough for her to glimpse its contents. Inside,
she saw at least eight red cylinders stacked neatly, sticks
of dynamite or something resembling them, wired together with insulation
covered wires attached to a large battery. It looked every
bit like an improvised explosive device. Florence swallowed hard as
Cooper clicked the case shut again. There was no doubt

(08:50):
now in her mind that this was a genuine hijacking.
Cooper spoke calmly in a low voice as he began
to spell out his demands. He told Florence exactly what
he wanted and directed her to write it down so
it could be delivered to the cockpit crew. Florence fumbled
for a pen and paper, taking dictation from the hijacker.
His requirements were precise and audacious. He wanted two hundred

(09:12):
thousand dollars in cash, specifically in negotiable American currency unmarked
twenty dollar bills, to be delivered when the plane landed
in Seattle. He insisted that the cash be put in
a knapsack for easy carrying. He also wanted four parachutes,
two primary back parachutes and two reserve front parachutes, as
well as a fuel truck standing by at the Seattle airport,

(09:35):
ready to refuel the aircraft upon arrival. He also demanded
there be no tricks. Cooper warned that there should be
no funny stuff, or I'll do the job. In other words,
if authorities attempted any subterfuge or delay, he was prepared
to detonate the bomb. Florence jotted down the hijacker's demand's
word for word. Later retellings of the note would quote

(09:55):
Cooper's chilling words almost verbatim. I want two hundred thousand
dollars by five p m and cash. Put it in
a knapsack. I want two back parachutes and two front
parachutes when we land, I want a fuel truck ready
to refuel. No funny stuff, or I'll do the job.
This was the only direct threat Cooper voiced during the
entire incident, and it was explicit. Everyone's life on flight

(10:17):
three oh five now hung in the balance of how
this drama would be handled. Clutching the hijacker's note, Florence
turned and looked into Cooper's eyes. They were hidden behind
his dark sunglasses, giving him an impenetrable cool demeanor. Satisfied
that his instructions were clear, Cooper allowed Florence to stand up,
keeping her voice as normal as possible. She informed him

(10:39):
she was going to deliver his demands to the captain.
Cooper handed her the original ransom note, the one he
had first given her, and quietly retrieved it back from
her once she had read it. This ensured that no
handwriting sample of his would remain in evidence. From this
point on, all of his communications would be written by
the flight attendants at his dictation. It was one of

(11:00):
many subtle moves that indicated Cooper had carefully thought through
how to leave minimal traces of himself. Trying to appear casual,
Florence Shafner walked up the aisle toward the cockpit. As
far as the other passengers knew, she was just going
to check on that minor mechanical issue the crew would
later claim as an excuse for delay. Once in the
front galley, Florence met Alice Hancock, the senior stewardess, and

(11:22):
quietly informed her of the dire situation. Hancock's eyes widened
in shock as Florence showed her the note with Cooper's demands.
At three twelve PM, Florence and Alice entered the cockpit
and closed the door behind them. Captain Scott and First
Officer Ratazak turned to see the ash and face of
Florence Shaffner handing over the hijacker's note. Florence quickly but

(11:43):
calmly relayed everything Dan Cooper had told her. There was
a man in Row eighteen claiming to have a bomb.
He demanded two hundred thousand dollars in cash and four
parachutes by five pm. He wanted the plane refueled on
arrival in SeaTac. He promised to blow up the aircraft
if anyone interfered or if his demands were not met
on time. Captain Scott absorbed this information and immediately took action.

(12:06):
He instructed Florence to remain in the cockpit, out of sight,
and make detailed notes of all events for later reference.
Scott's rationale was that Shaffner had already interacted with the
hijacker and was understandably shaken. Better to have her safely
upfront helping with documentation. Tina Mucklow, on the other hand,
had not yet been involved. The Captain decided Tina would

(12:27):
be the crew's liaison. Back in the cabin, Scott picked
up the interphone and quietly summoned Tina to the cockpit,
careful not to alarm any of the passengers. When Tina arrived,
he briefed her quickly on the situation that there was
a hijacker with a bomb seated in the last row,
and she was to return to him and act as
the intermediary, complying with his request and keeping him calm.

(12:49):
Before sending Tina back out, Captain Scott radioed air traffic
control with a coated message at around three point fifteen pm.
He informed Seattle Tacoma Airport's tower that we have a
hijacker on and relaid the demands exactly as Dan Cooper
had given them. The air traffic controller, momentarily stunned, acknowledged
the message. Within minutes, word of the hijacking was passed

(13:11):
from Seattle air Traffic Control to the Seattle Police, and
immediately to the local office of the FBI. Northwest Orient's president,
Donald Nyrop, was also contacted. Nirop, hearing that one of
his airliners was being hijacked, did not hesitate. He authorized
full compliance with the hijackers demands and instructed that all
Northwest employees should cooperate fully to save the lives of

(13:33):
those on board. In nineteen seventy one, US airlines had
no firm policy on dealing with hijackers demanding a ransom,
but the safety of passengers and crew was paramount. The
airline would pay and worry about the money later. Back
in the passenger cabin, the atmosphere was still deceptively routine.
Flight three oh five had leveled off at around thirty

(13:53):
thousand feet and was cruising towards Seattle to by time
for the ransom and parachutes to be gathered on the ground.
Captain Scott came on the public address system and lied
to the passengers. He apologized that a minor technical difficulty
would prevent them from landing immediately, and that they would
circle the Puget Sound for a while until it was resolved.
This announcement barely caused a stir. A few passengers side

(14:16):
or looked at their watches, but most took it in stride,
minor delays not being uncommon. The seven twenty seven began
flying in a slow, lazy holding pattern above the Seattle area,
effectively turning the airliner into a bargaining chip orbiting overhead.
While law enforcement scrambled on the ground. With Florence Shafner
remaining in the cockpit, Tina Mucklow now assumed the dangerous

(14:37):
role of cabin liaison. Tina walked calmly back down the
aisle and made her way to Row eighteen, the aft
most row. She introduced herself to the hijacker and slid
into the seat next to him that Florence had vacated
just a few minutes prior. Despite the tension, twenty two
year old Tina tried to smile and project an air
of professional calm. Inside her heart was pounding, But like Florence,

(14:59):
Tina I would later recall that Cooper's own demeanor helped
steady her. He seemed completely in control and unnervingly calm
given what he was doing over the next several minutes
and what would become ours. Tina Mucklow became Dan Cooper's
primary attendant and conversational partner, the only other person besides
the hijacker himself who remained in the know about every

(15:20):
turn of the drama unfolding on flight three oh five.
As Flight three oh five banked gently in its holding
pattern above Seattle, Tina Mucklow sat by the hijacker's side
and served as his eyes and ears on the rest
of the plane. The tension in Row eighteen was palpable,

(15:40):
but outwardly Dan Cooper remained collected, even courteous. He had
Tina close the window shade next to him, perhaps to
prevent snipers from catching a glimpse of him during the
landing in Seattle. He also made a point of instructing
Tina to stay by his side at all times during
the aerial weight, a clear indication that he considered her
presence both as in assurance and as a conduit for

(16:01):
his orders. Tina, for her part, kept her composure and
engaged Cooper in quiet conversation to keep him calm. Remarkably,
the two talked in a low tone, almost like casual
seat mates. At one point, looking out the window at
the ground below, peeking through breaks in the clouds, Cooper remarked,
looks like Tacoma down there, noting the city's lights. As

(16:22):
the plane circled overhead. It struck Tina that he seemed
familiar with the local terrain of Washington State. Indeed, when
she mentioned to him that the parachutes they had requested
were being sourced from nearby McCord Air Force Base, Cooper
nodded and noted that McCord was only a twenty minute
drive from SeaTac These comments gave the impression that their
hijacker knew the Pacific Northwest pretty well. In an effort

(16:44):
to build rapport or glean insight into the man's motives,
Tina gently asked Cooper, why did you choose Northwest Airlines?
Cooper chuckled at the question. It's not because I have
a grudge against your airline, he replied, It's just because
I have a grudge. He did not elaborate further on
whom or what his grudge was directed toward. When Tina
pressed a bit, asking do you have a grudge against

(17:06):
someone in particular, Cooper became momentarily more guarded. He told
her the flight choice at simply suited his needs, and
he declined to reveal any personal details about himself. Sensing
that that line of inquiry was unwelcome, Tina shifted the
more neutral small talk. She mentioned that she was originally
from Pennsylvania but now based in Minneapolis, Northwest Airline's hometown.

(17:29):
Cooper responded that Minnesota was very nice country, seeming to
make polite conversation himself. However, when Tina in turn asked
where he was from, Cooper's demeanor hardened. He refused to
answer and quickly changed the subject. Clearly, he was willing
to make small talk, but anything that might identify him
personally was off limits. As the minutes ticked by, Tina

(17:50):
noticed some more details about Dan Cooper, he opened his
briefcase again, briefly, not to threaten her, but to casually
retrieve a pack of cigarettes. Offering Tinas, he pulled out
a rally filter tip and lit it up. Tina declined
at first, mentioning that she was trying to quit smoking,
but under the unusual stress of the moment, she accepted
the cigarette that Dan Cooper offered and joined him for

(18:12):
a smoke in the rear cabin. The hijacker and the
flight attendant sat side by side, sharing a surreal cigarette
break at ten thousand feet in the sky, as if
they were just a couple of coworkers. Unwinding. Tina later
reported that Cooper even asked if she was nervous. She
admitted that she was, but his oddly gentle demeanor did
put her a bit more at ease. Meanwhile, not everyone

(18:34):
on flight three O five was entirely oblivious to the
extended delay. One passenger, later dubbed the Cowboy for the
Western style stets in the hat that he wore, grew
restless and suspicious when the plane repeatedly looped around Puget
Sound instead of descending. The man got up from his
seat and made his way toward the rear of the plane,
ostensibly two stretch his legs or used the bathroom. Spotting

(18:56):
Tina near the back with Cooper nearby, the Cowboy approached her.
Was going on, he asked, noting the plane's continued circling Tina.
Following the cover story, she had been given, replied with
a friendly smile that there was a minor mechanical issue
and that they would land as soon as possible. The
cowboy wasn't entirely convinced, and started peppering her with questions.

(19:16):
According to passenger George le Bissigniere, who witnessed this interaction,
Cooper initially watched with amusement as Tina tried to deflect
the inquiring passenger, but as the man persisted ignoring Cooper's presence,
Cooper's patience waned. Finally, the hijacker spoke up with quiet authority,
telling the other man to return to his seat. Passenger,

(19:36):
dubbed the cowboy, either did not hear Cooper or chose
to ignore him, continuing to badger Tina for answers. Le
Bissigniere himself intervened at this point, gently tugging on the
cowboy's arm and suggesting they sit back down. He managed
to escort the curious man back up the aisle before
any further confrontation occurred, but Tina later recalled a slightly

(19:56):
different version of events. In her memory, the passenger simply
asked her for something to read because he was bored,
so she fetched a magazine, a copy of The New
Yorker from a rack directly behind Dan Cooper's row, handed
it to the passenger, and he returned to his seat
without incident. When Tina sat back down next to Dan Cooper,
he made a subtle remark under his breath, if that
is a sky marshal, I don't want any more of that.

(20:20):
Tina quickly assured him that there were no sky marshals
on board Flight three oh five. Indeed, while the newly
formed US sky marshal program had begun earlier that year,
the chance of one being on any given flight was
extremely low, and it was later confirmed that Flight three
oh five had none. Cooper's comments suggested that he was
alert to any sign of undercover law enforcement, but the

(20:41):
incident passed without further drama. The unidentified cowboy passenger was
never interviewed by the FBI and faded into anonymity, having
unwittingly shared a brief moment with the skyjacker mid flight.
For roughly two hours, flight three oh five remained aloft,
circling the Seattle area. Down below an emerging and the
response was rapidly taking shape. But up in the plane,

(21:03):
the situation stayed calm and strangely cordial. Tina Mucklow continued
to attend to Dan Cooper's needs. He asked for another drink,
and she brought him a second bourbon and soda, which
he paid for, insisting on giving her a few bucks
and even offering to Tipper for her service, but she
politely declined, citing company policy against accepting pips. At one point,

(21:24):
in an apparent gesture of kindness or perhaps dark humor,
Cooper opened up his wallet and tried to give Tina
and the other flight attendants some cash as a gratuity,
presumably from his own pocket, not the ransom money. All
three women refused, again, reminding him of the no tips policy.
Cooper did not object. He shrugged and put the money away.
The fact that the hijacker was concerned with polite etiquette,

(21:46):
even amid a life or death hostage situation later struck
many as bizarre. Tina herself later joked that she had
nervously quipped, mind if I get some of that money
when the ransom finally arrived. Trying to break the tension,
Cooper had dreadly offered her a bundle of bills on
the spot, only for Tina to immediately hand it back
Gallow's humor to lighten the mood in a pressure cooker environment.

(22:09):
Through these interactions, Dan Cooper showed no signs of panic.
If anything, he appeared to be a man who had
prepared for this moment. Tina Mucklow observed that he seemed
familiar with the aircraft's interior and the nuances of its operation.
For instance, he clearly knew about the seven twenty seven's
unique rear stairway. He chosen this model of plane presumably

(22:29):
because of that feature, yet he initially thought he might
need assistance operating it in flight. The ability to deploy
the aft staircase mid flight was not widely known to
the public. It was a capability known mostly to Boeing
engineers or perhaps military or CIA operatives. Cooper's request to
Tina and the cockpit crew would soon make clear he

(22:49):
had a detailed escape plan, even if some of its
finer points, like exactly how to get the stairs down safely,
had to be worked out on the fly. Meanwhile, down
on the ground, law enforcement and airline officials were racing
against the clock to fulfill Cooper's demands before the five
pm deadline. The next phase of the saga was about
to begin as flight three oh five prepared the land

(23:10):
in Seattle, but first a short break the moment that

(23:31):
Captain Scott relayed the hijackers demands to Seattle Tacoma air
traffic control, an emergency response kicked into high gear by
about three thirty PM, even as flight three oh five
still circled overhead. A command center was forming on the ground.
The FBI office in Seattle and the Seattle Police Department
both mobilized after getting word that a bomb thread hijacking

(23:51):
was in progress. FBI Special Agent Ralph Himmelsbach, who would
soon become the bureau's point man on this case, headed
to the airport Northway Best Oriented Operations Manager convened with
law enforcement to figure out how to meet the hijacker's
demands within the short time frame. Though skyjackings had become
disturbingly frequent by nineteen seventy one, there was no playbook

(24:11):
for this exact scenario. Most were politically motivated or involved
diverting planes to Cuba. A demand for a huge cash
ransom was unusual, but not unheard of. Still, this combination
of a bomb threat and a daredevil parachute escape was
something new. Northwest President Donald Nyrop had already given the
green light, pay the ransom and do whatever was necessary

(24:34):
to protect the lives of the passengers and crew. That
meant obtaining two hundred thousand dollars in cash on very
short notice. The task fell to Seattle police and FBI
agents to gather the money. They reached out to local banks,
and it was Seattle First National Bank that stepped up
to provide the funds. Agents requested the money in unmarked
twenty dollars bills as specified by the hijacker himself. In

(24:57):
an impressive feed of rapid logistics, the bank is assembled
ten thousand twenty dollars notes, which were photographed onto microfilm
to record each serial number. The serials mostly began with
the letter L indicating issuance by the Federal Reserve Bank
of San Francisco, and were not sequential to make tracking harder.
By late afternoon, agents had a large canvas bag filled

(25:19):
with stacks of twenty dollars bills totaling two hundred thousand
dollars weighing about nineteen pounds. The demand for parachutes proved
more challenging. Cooper had asked for four parachutes, two main
back chutes and two reserve front chutes. This was likely
a calculated move. With multiple parachutes requested, authorities had to
assume he might pick a hostage, perhaps a crew member

(25:42):
or passenger. Thus, they could not risk sabotaging the chutes
without endangering an innocent person. The FBI scrambled to source
the parachutes on short notice. Seattle police reached out to
a local skydiving school, Seattle sky Sports, run by an
experienced parachutist named Earl Cossey. U provided two civilian sports parachutes,

(26:02):
which were the front reserve chutes from his collection. For
the two main back parachutes, authorities turned to a local
stunt pilot and skydiver, Norman Hayden, who lent two military
style BA twenty two parachute rigs, the backpack types used
for skydiving. By coincidence, one of the reserve chutes obtained
from Cossey was a dummy training chute, an inert rig

(26:25):
sewn shut for classroom use with no functioning parachute inside.
Whether the FBI delivered this non functional reserve intentionally or
by mistake remains a matter of debate. Regardless. Cooper would
later end up taking that dummy reserve with him, perhaps
unknowingly when he jumped, but at the time agents simply
grabbed whatever parachutes they could find in their rush. By

(26:47):
five twenty four pm, twenty four minutes after the deadline,
word came that the demands were ready to be met,
that the cash and parachutes had arrived at Sea tac Airport.
Captain Scott, still circling in the sky recive, received the
message and informed Cooper that they would be landing shortly
now that his ransom and equipment were on site. Cooper
instructed Scott the land only when everything was set, and

(27:09):
to do so on a remote, well lit portion of
the tarmac away from the main terminal. He also specified
that on landing, only one person should approach the plane
to deliver the goods, using the front boarding stairs via
a mobile staircase vehicle, presumably to minimize the chance of
a stealth attack amid a crowd. The authorities agreed to
these terms. At five forty five pm, Flight three oh

(27:32):
five finally touched down at Seattle Tacoma International Airport, well
after nightfall on this late November evening. Cooper had kept
his cool during the approach through Tina, he reiterated that
he wanted the cabin lights dimmed and the window shades
closed to avoid sniper sites. With the bombs still allegedly
at his side, everyone proceeded with extreme caution. Following Cooper's directive,

(27:55):
Captain Scott taxied the Boeing seven twenty seven to an
isolated stretch of runway, far from the terminals and emergency
vehicles that were standing by. There, the plane came to
a stop on the ground. A mobile staircase was driven
up to the seven twenty seven's forward door. As agreed,
only a single individual approached, al Lee, Northwest Seattle Operations manager,

(28:18):
who volunteered to be the courier. To avoid any misinterpretation,
Lee changed out of his airline uniform and in the
plane clothes. Cooper had warned that no one in police
or military uniforms should come near the plane, and an
airline uniform might conceivably be mistaken for law enforcement. In
the dark, Carrying the heavy canvas sack of money in
the four parachute packs, and under careful watch of FBI

(28:41):
snipers from a distance, al Lee walked across the tarmac
alone toward the parked seven twenty seven. According to the plan,
Tina mucklow opened the forward cabin door and stepped out
to receive the delivery. It was raining lightly at SeaTac
as Tina, under Cooper's watchful eye, from the open doorway,
met Al Lee at the top of the mobile stairs.

(29:03):
Lee handed over the bag of cash first, then each
of the parachute packs. Tina, struggling slightly under the weight,
carried the large sack past rows of wide eyed passengers
still seated in the cabin, all the weight to the rear,
where Cooper waited. She also brought the parachutes back, two
at a time. Once Cooper was satisfied that his demands
had been met in full, the money bag and four

(29:24):
parachutes now in his possession, he agreed to let the
remaining passengers leave the plane. Tina Mucklowe then made an
announcement over the PA for the passengers, You're free to
deplane now. Please remain calm and leave all your belongings.
The weary travelers were confused, but relieved they had been
pulled up to now, only that a mechanical issue caused

(29:44):
the delay. Many still had no idea that a hijacking
had ever occurred. Nonetheless, Row by Row thirty six astonished
passengers shuffled toward the front door and down the mobile
stairway into the cool night air, greeted by a legion
of police, who whisked them away to safety. It was
at this point that Tina tried to inject a bit
of levity. With a faint smile, she asked the hijacker

(30:06):
mind if I have some of this money? As she
passed by with the ransom sack. As I mentioned earlier,
Cooper actually offered her a packet of bills with no hesitation,
essentially a tip for her help, but Tina immediately declined
and handed it back, explaining that accepting gratuities was against
company policy. Cooper nodded he had also earlier tried to
tip Florence and Alice with his own pocket money and

(30:29):
had been refused. The absurd politeness of the gesture was
not lost on Tina, but it was a brief human
moment in an otherwise high stakes exchange. With the passengers
safely off the plane, only the hijacker and four crew
members remained. There was Captain Scott, first Officer RATAZAC Flight
engineer Anderson, and Tina Mucklow, who was in the cabin

(30:49):
with Cooper. The other three remained in the cockpit. Flight
attendants Florence Schaffner and Alice Hancock, had used the opportunity
to retrieve their own belongings, and then they quickly deplained it.
Florence Schaffner had actually asked for Cooper's permission to grab
her purse from a compartment near his seat, and equipped
I won't bite you as she gingerly reached past him.

(31:10):
Before Alice and Florence left, one of them asked Cooper
if the three flight detendants could exit the aircraft along
with the passengers. Cooper unexpectedly responded with gallant indifference. Whatever
you girls would like, he said. However, Cooper stipulated that
Tina Mucklow must stay aboard to assist him for the
next phase. Tina, knowing at least now that all of
the passengers and her colleagues were safe, steeled herself to

(31:33):
remain as the sole hostage outside. The situation remained tense.
Refueling the Boeing seven twenty seven proved troublesome. The airport
had sent a tinker truck to top off flight three
oh five's fuel tanks as Cooper demanded, but the pump
mechanism malfunctioned, causing some delays. Cooper, peering out a window,
grew agitated that the refueling was taking longer than expected.

(31:56):
Two more fuel trucks were brought in quick succession to
complete the job. While they waited, Cooper discovered one issue
with his ransom. The money had been delivered in a
cloth canvas sack, essentially a bank money bag, rather than
a waterproof knapsack as he had specified. This clearly annoyed him,
as he grumbled to Tina, this isn't what I asked for.

(32:16):
Now he would have to improvise a way to securely
carry the money for his jump without missing a beat.
Cooper pulled out a pocket knife. He took one of
the reserve parachute packs, not intended for use but likely
brought as a decoy or back up, and swiftly slashed
it open. He dumped out its contents, cutting away the
silk canopy, and began repurposing the pack into a makeshift

(32:37):
money bag. Using the parachute's strong shroud lines, he fashioned
a crude handle or carrying strap for the canvas sack.
Tina watched as Cooper coolly converted the gear to his needs,
stuffing bundles of cash into the empty parachute bag to
reinforce the less dirty bank bag. It was evident that
he had expected a knapsack and was ready to adapt
to this hiccup. Unknown to either Tina or Cooper, the

(33:00):
reserve shoot he cannibalized was possibly the non functional dummy choote.
In effect, he cleverly put it to the only real
use it had as parts for his money carrier. The
refueling delay stretched on, reaching about six pm and beyond
Cooper's patience, largely intact until now began to fray, ever
so slightly. In an uncharacteristic flash of irritation, he remarked

(33:22):
to Tina, it shouldn't take this long. He then picked
up the cabin phone connecting to the cockpit and directly
addressed Captain Scott. Let's get the show on the road,
he ordered curtly over the intercom. Scott explained through the
closed cockpit door that the fueling would be finished in moments.
True to his word, by approximately seven forty pm, the
seven twenty seven's tanks were finally topped off for the

(33:44):
long flight that Cooper was about to command. While still
on the ground in Seattle, Cooper outlined his flight plan
to the cockpit crew via Tina and occasional use of
the interphone. His instructions were highly specific. The aircraft was
to fly southeast toward Mexico's City at the minimum are
speed possible without stalling, roughly one hundred knots or one

(34:04):
hundred and fifteen miles per hour, and at a low
altitude no higher than ten thousand feet. Furthermore, the landing
gear was to remain down and the wing flaps set
at fifteen degrees. Crucially, Cooper said he wanted the cabin
to remain unpressurized during flight. These conditions, he presumably already knew,
would allow the aft stair door to be opened in

(34:25):
flight without a catastrophic depressurization. The combination of gear down
flaps fifteen in low speed also made for a nose high,
very fuel inefficient ride, one that greatly limited the plane's range. Indeed,
First Officer Ratazac informed Cooper that at such settings they
couldn't reach Mexico City without a refuel stop. The seven

(34:46):
twenty seven would only have about one thousand mile range
in that configuration, meaning that at least one stop would
be needed north of the Mexican border. The crew suggested
some options for refueling along the way. They proposed Reno,
Nevada as like stop, and possibly Yuma, Arizona after that
if needed. Cooper agreed to a refueling stop in Reno,
a city on the general route south, but he did

(35:09):
not comment on Yuma specifically. The priority for him was
simply to get airborne again and out of US airspace
as quickly as possible. Cooper had one more bold demand.
He wanted to take off with the aft stairway in
the down position. This was an unprecedented request. No commercial
jet had ever taken off with its rear ventral stairs deployed.

(35:30):
Captain Scott responded that take off with the stairs down
was unsafe and impossible, but he offered to check with
engineers through some radio relays. Northwest Operations Team consulted Boeing engineers,
who confirmed that while A seven twenty seven likely could
not physically lift off with the ventral stair deployed, it
was technically possible to lower the stair in flight without

(35:51):
causing an accident. This information was then relayed back to Cooper.
Satisfied with that, he let the issue go, telling Scott
that he would lower the stairs himself after takeoff, and
he did not insist on trying to depart with them
already down. With all preparations complete, the moment came to
launch phase two of Dan Cooper's plan. At seven thirty
six pm, Northwest Flight three oh five was cleared for

(36:14):
takeoff from SeaTac. The runway lights glowed as the seven
twenty seven's engines spooled up. In the cabin, Tina sat
in a jump seat near Cooper for takeoff for his
instructions that she remained with him. Unbeknownst to Cooper, two
F one Z six fighter jets from McCart Air Force
Base had quietly scrambled during the Seattle pit stop and
were now aloft to shadow the seven twenty seven. They,

(36:37):
along with a smaller T thirty three jet trainer, were
attempting to follow Flight three oh five at a distance
out of Cooper's view, but because the airliner was flying
so slowly and low, the military jets had to perform
wide S shaped maneuvers to avoid overtaking it, and the
T thirty three could not descend low enough to track
it directly. The stage was set for the final act

(36:59):
of Dan Cooper's off Dacious Crime. Northwest three oh five
thundered down the runway and lifted off into the night sky,
heading south by southeast on Airway Victor twenty three toward
the Oregon state line. Rain was falling and the cloud
covered quarter moon provided little illumination over the dark Pacific

(37:21):
Northwest forest below inside the plane. Soon after reaching the
assigned altitude of ten thousand feet, Cooper turned to Tina.
It was time lower the aft stairs now, he instructed her.
Tina hesitated, imagining the sudden woosh of air and the
possibility of being sucked out of the plane. In the cockpit.
The crew heard her reluctance and offered a suggestion she

(37:43):
could come forward and retrieve a length of emergency rope
to tether herself while operating the stairs, but Cooper immediately
rejected that idea. He was adamant that the cockpit crew
stay up front and Tina not leave his sight or
go forward. Tina continued to protest that she was afraid
of being pulled out of the plane by the airstream
if the door was opened at altitude. The hijacker, showing

(38:05):
a degree of understanding, relented on making her do it.
He told Tina he would open the stairs himself. She
pleaded once more, asking if he could at least cut
a cord from one of the parachutes to fashion a
safety line for her. Cooper responded with a simple no,
never mind, and decided he did not need her assistance
after all. He directed Tina to go back to the

(38:25):
cockpit and close the curtained partition between first class and
coach behind her. Realizing this might be her last exchange
with the mysterious hijacker, Tina summoned her courage to make
one personal plea. As she got up to head forward,
she turned to Cooper and said, please please take the
bomb with you if he was going to jump. She
begged that he not leave the live explosive behind to

(38:47):
potentially kill them all. Cooper gave her an ambiguous reassurance.
He said he would either disarm the bomb or take
it with him when he jumped. It wasn't a promise exactly,
but it was enough for Tina. In that moment, Tina
Mucklow moved up the aisle toward the cockpit. As she did,
she stole a final glance over her shoulder at the hijacker.

(39:07):
Dan Cooper had risen from his seat in the rear
of the empty coach cabin. Tina saw him standing in
the aisle, tying the brim of the money bag around
his waist with what looked like parachute cords. He was
preparing for his jump. Tina could hardly believe the sight.
The man was about to leap into a thunderstorm at night,
carrying two hunch grand in cash. She took a breath,

(39:29):
then closed the heavy vinyl curtain that separated first class
from the coach section as Cooper had instructed. Then she
continued on and slipped into the cockpit, with the pilots
locking the door behind her. It was approximately eight pm
when Tina joined the others and briefed them that Cooper
was gearing up to jump. For a few minutes, there
was silence from the back of the plane. The crew

(39:51):
in the cockpit kept monitoring their instruments. At about eight
o five pm, a warning light flashed on the pilot's panel,
indicating that the aft Air airstair had been deployed in
mid flight. Captain Scott used the intercom to shout back,
asking is everything okay? Back there need any help? The
reply that crackled through was a single word from Cooper No.

(40:13):
It would be his last known communication. At roughly eight
thirteen PM, the aircraft's tail section suddenly yawed upward, a
sharp movement that caught the pilot's attention. Immediately, the seven
twenty seven's nose dipped, and the crew had to trim
the plane to keep it level. This sudden change in
pitch was consistent with the weight and aerodynamic shift that

(40:33):
would occur if the aft stairway was lowered and someone
jumped off. First Officer Ratazac would later tell investigators that
this bump occurred as they were passing near the suburbs
north of Portland, indicating that Cooper might have leapt over
southwestern Washington, not far from the Lewis River. Unsure whether
the hijacker was still on board or not, the pilots

(40:54):
remained in the cockpit as instructed. They knew that the
aft stair was open, which meant that the plane was
a effectively flying with a big door hanging down. As
they neared the next planned stop, Reno Nevada. At around
ten pm, Captain Scott got on the entercom and tried
to raise Cooper again. Tina Mucklowe also used the PA
system to inform Cooper that they were approaching Reno and

(41:16):
needed him to raise the stairs for landing, otherwise it
would be unsafe. They got no response. Tina repeated her
request a few times as Reno's lights came into view,
but still no reply from the man in the back
of the plane. The plane had been flying for over
an hour and a half since Seattle, and for most
of that time the crew had heard nothing but radio
chatter and the rush of wind from the partially open

(41:37):
aft door. At eleven o two pm, Flight three oh
five touchdown at Reno Tahoe International Airport with the rear
stairway still extended beneath its tail. Captain Scott brought the
jet to a stop on an isolated apron, and the
pilots and Tina waited, unsure if the hijacker and as
possibly live bomb were still on board. FBI agents and

(41:59):
police who had gathered in Reno held their distance guns drawn,
forming a perimeter around the plane with floodlights. After a
few minutes, with no signs from the cabin, Captain Scott
decided to leave the cockpit cautiously. He emerged into the
cabin pistol in hand. By this point someone had provided
the crew with a firearm for self defense and made

(42:20):
his way aft. The rear door gaped open to the night.
The aft stairs were fully down, but there was no
sign of Dan Cooper. He was gone, although remained in
the back of the plane were two of the parachute rigs,
one of the main parachutes and one reserve, one of
which had been slashed open, and the thin black clip
on tie that Cooper had removed and left draped over

(42:41):
a seat, complete with a mother of pearl tie clip.
There were also eight cigarette butts in an ash tray
and a few stray hairs on the seat headrest, but
of the hijacker and the ransom money there wasn't a trace.
After about half an hour of cautiously sweeping the aircraft,
a Reno police bomb squad declared plane clear. There was

(43:01):
no bomb left behind. Cooper had apparently taken or disarmed
it as promised. The legendary skyjacker had escaped into the
night without a scratch to anyone on board, The FBI
and law enforcement personnel on the ground were left staring
at an empty seven twenty seven and into the starless
sky beyond, asking themselves the same question that the rest
of the world would soon be asking, where did Dan

(43:24):
Cooper go? Within hours of the daring leap from flight

(43:55):
three oh five, one of the most intensive manhunts in
American history had begun. The FBI, which had led the
negotiations in Seattle under the case name nor Jack for
Northwest Hijagging, now shifted fully into search and recovery mode.
Agents quickly secured the hijacked aircraft in Reno, dusting for
fingerprints and collecting any physical evidence. Technicians recovered sixty six

(44:18):
latent fingerprints from various parts of the cabin, though matching
them to the suspect proved difficult without a known identity.
They bagged Cooper's black j C Penny clip on tie
and TI clip left on the seat. They also gathered
the two parachutes he had left behind, one unused reserve
with the cords cut, and one of the primary backpacks,
which was still intact. Curiously, all eight rally cigarette butts

(44:41):
that Cooper had extinguished were also retrieved. From an ash
tray in his row. Decades later, the FBI would discover
that those cigarette butts were inadvertently lost or destroyed before
DNA testing became available, a frustrating lapse since they might
have contained the hijacker's genetic fingerprint. Even as evidence was
being collected in the FBI's focus turned to the vast,

(45:02):
rugged landscape that Cooper had likely parachuted into. Based on
the flightpath and the timing of the eight thirteen PM
bump when the plane's tail rose suddenly. Initial estimates placed
the probable drop zone in the dense woods near the
Lewis River in southwestern Washington, specifically near Lake Merwin, not
far from aerial Washington. This area is about thirty miles

(45:24):
north of Portland and directly under the flight's known route.
FBI agents coordinated with local law enforcement, state troopers, and
even US Air Force personnel to organize a search of
this region. The US Air Force had incredibly dispatched a
top secret SR seventy one Blackbird spy plane to make
several high altitude passes over the flight path, trying to

(45:45):
photograph any sign of Cooper or parachutes on the ground. However,
the darkness, the thick cloud cover, and the dense forest
canopy thwarted many of those aerial photography attempts. At dawn
on November twenty fifth, Thanksgiving Day, search teams mobilized in force.
Helicopters from nearby Fort Lewis buzzed low over the suspected

(46:06):
drop zone, scanning for disturbed treetops, parachute fabric, or any
sign of a camp or body on foot. FBI agents
and about two hundred soldiers from Fort Lewis and local
volunteers combed through miles of forest, slogging over rough terrain
and fanning out in grid patterns. It was a daunting task.
The search area encompassed dense woods, rivers, and steep hills

(46:27):
in the Southern Cascades. The November weather was wet and cold,
turning the ground to mud and limiting visibility under the
evergreen canopy. Despite days of efforts, not a single trace
of Dan Cooper, his parachute, or the ransom money was
immediately found. The search wasn't confined to Washington either, in
case the drop zone calculation was off. Authorities also quietly

(46:50):
checked parts of Oregon just south of the Columbia River.
One off duty sheriff's deputy in northeastern Oregon even reported
hearing a mysterious suspected hijacker transmission on his Ham radio
the night of the jump, though this lead later fizzled out.
Local residents in southwestern Washington were questioned and told to
report anything unusual, such as a hurt stranger appearing at

(47:10):
their door, unexplained vehicles, parachutes, et cetera. Door to door
inquiries in farmhouses and towns near the Lewis River were conducted.
Some civilians eagerly joined the search. In one famous instance,
a local well to do adventurer conjectured that Cooper might
have landed in Lake Merwin itself, so he hired a
submarine to search the lake bottom for the ransom or

(47:31):
the body. As you can imagine, nothing was found. Back
in the offices of the FBI, agents feverishly worked another angle,
finding possible suspects on the ground. The hijacker had given
the name Dan Cooper, but everyone realized this was likely
an alias. In Portland, they actually located and interviewed a
man named D. B. Cooper, a minor local ex KHN,

(47:54):
but it was quickly confirmed that he had no connection
not only did he have an alibi, but he looked
nothing like the suspect. The only legacy of that mistaken
identity was a media mix up. A reporter overheard police
radio chatter about a D. B. Cooper and assumed it
was the hijacker's name. In rushing to meet a deadline,
James Long of the Oregon Journal accidentally wrote D. B.

(48:15):
Cooper instead of Dan Cooper in a news story. The
UPI wire service picked up the erroneous name and broadcast
it nationwide. By the time the mistake was recognized, it
was too late. D B. Cooper had entered the law
as the hijacker's moniker, and it ultimately stuck. FBI agents
later clarified that the hijacker never used the initials d

(48:36):
B at all. That was purely a press invention, but
the catchy, illiterative name had captured public imagination in a
way that Dan Cooper likely never would have. The media
coverage of the skyjacking was frenzied. On November twenty fifth,
nineteen seventy one, The day after this incident, Americans woke
up to some startling headlines. An airliner had been hijacked

(48:58):
in the Pacific Northwest, and there was a airing parachute
escape with a huge ransom, as well as an unknown
suspect on the loose. The fact that the hijacker had
seemingly vanished into thin air gave the story a sensational,
almost mythic quality from the start. Journalists descended on Seattle,
Portland and areno to get interviews with the flight three
H five crew and passengers. Northwest Orion's president Donald Nyrop

(49:21):
gave statements reassuring that everything possible was done to ensure
passenger safety, and indeed all the passengers were safe if
a little befoddled. The flight crew, once debriefed, were hailed
as heroes for their calm handling of the crisis. Dramatic
images hit the newswires, FBI agents standing by piles of
cash or holding up the composite sketch of d V.

(49:43):
Cooper that was already in progress at SeaTac FBI agent
Ralph Himmelsbach briefed reporters, describing the suspect as a man
in his mid forties, alive complexion, wearing a dark suit
and tie, emphasizing how extraordinary the case was. Himmelsbach, in
particular Tyler became a media fixture, though not actually the
case's lead FBI agent. At first, he was the most

(50:06):
vocal and by his own admission, obsessed with catching D. B. Cooper.
A pilot himself, Himmelsbock had ironically been up in a
helicopter the night of the hijacking, attempting to follow flight
three oh five, but the chopper could not keep up.
In press conferences, Himmelsbach did not hide his personal opinion.
He believed that the hijacker was probably dead. Given the

(50:26):
inclement weather, the nighttime jump, and the difficult terrain, Himmelsbach
speculated that Dan Cooper had likely not survived the parachute descent,
saying that he probably hadn't even gotten his shoot open
before hitting the ground. He colorfully described the terrain as unforgiving,
imagining Cooper's body buried in thick mud or lost to
the bottom of some ravine. Over the next few weeks,

(50:48):
Himmelsbach's certainty about Cooper's fate that he was dead in
the wilderness somewhere, would set the tone for the FBI's
public stance as nineteen seventy one drew to a close.
The immediate frenzied slowly gave way to some frustration. Despite
an intense search through late November and into December, nothing
conclusive was found in the forest of the Pacific Northwest.

(51:09):
On December sixth, nineteen seventy one, after nearly two weeks
of fruitless searching, the FBI skialed back the ground hunt.
The official investigation was still very much open, but they
had to admit they lacked hard evidence of where Dan
Cooper landed. The seven twenty seven flight parameters, its speed,
its altitude, and weather variables had too much uncertainty to

(51:30):
pinpoint an exact drop zone. The fighter jet pilots had
seen nothing. Their radar picked up no parachute. With a moonless,
stormy sky, a man dressed in dark clothes would have
been all but invisible during the jump. The FBI's best
guess remained somewhere near the Lewis River in southwest Washington,
but even that covered a huge swath of wilderness. Investigators

(51:51):
did find some shreds of potential evidence in subsequent months,
though each would only lead to more questions. In early
nineteen seventy two, one hundreds in the woods found a
small placard printed with instructions for lowering a Boeing seven
twenty seven's aft stairs, exactly the kind found by the
rear door of a seven twenty seven. This placard was
later confirmed to have come from the hijacked plane, likely

(52:14):
ripped off by the air stair turbulence. It was discovered
along the flight path north of the Columbia River, further
substantiating the basic area where Cooper was believed to have jumped. However,
it offered no new clues beyond what was already assumed,
and no other gear was found with it. The public,
for its part, was enthralled by the story of Dan
or D. B. Cooper. In the Pacific Northwest especially, Cooper

(52:37):
became a bit of a faux hero almost overnight. Some
people saw him as a daring, outlaw faux hero, the
man who beat the odds and perhaps got away with it.
Older children in Washington traded exaggerated tales on playgrounds about
Dan Cooper hiding out in the woods or living incognito
in some small town. Nationally, the Cooper saga tapped into
a nineteen seventy zeitgeist of distrust of author and an

(53:00):
admiration for rebels. Here was a criminal who at least
on the surface, hurt no one except faceless corporations and
the government. In an era of skyjackings often tied to
political terror, Cooper's caper seemed almost refreshing in its cinematic
audacity and lack of violence. Within days, however, the FBI
reminded the public that this was no joke. That an

(53:22):
armed man extorted two hundred thousand dollars and risked the
lives of dozens. They appealed to citizens for any tips
that could lead to his identity. A hotline was flooded
with calls psychics claiming visions, pranksters spinning yarns, and a
few seemingly credible tips about odd individuals who suddenly had
money or parachute experience. The FBI methodically followed up on leads.

(53:45):
They interrogated former paratroopers, recently released convicts, known thrill seekers,
anyone who even remotely matched the physical description in the
circumstances of the case. As Christmas nineteen seventy one approached,
the hijacking case that started in a burst of drama
had entered the slog of a long, uncertain investigation. We're

(54:06):
going to pause once more for another quick break In
the months and years immediately following the d B Cooper skyjacking,
the FBI's nor Jack investigation carried on, but progress was
hard to come by. Initially, suspects were plentiful. The Bureau
would later reveal that between nineteen seventy one and twenty sixteen,

(54:27):
it considered over one thousand serious suspects in the Cooper case,
not to mention countless less plausible leads. In the early
nineteen seventies, agents chased tip after tip. Many were inevitably
false confessions. In fact, scores of prison inmates claimed to
be Dan Cooper, hoping that the federal charges, or even

(54:47):
just a temporary move to a nicer federal facility, might
improve their lot in life. These were easily debunked by
fingerprints or alibis. Other leads came from family members who
harbored suspicions about a brother, a husband, uncle who matched
the description and had exhibited strange behavior after Thanksgiving nineteen
seventy one, Each was checked out systematically. One of the

(55:09):
earliest strong suspects emerged in April of nineteen seventy two,
just months after the case, and he came with an
early similar crime. Richard Floyd McCoy Junior, a twenty nine
year old former Army green beret and Vietnam veteran, carried
out a copycat hijacking just five months after Cooper's. On
April seventh, nineteen seventy two, McCoy hijacked a United Airlines

(55:31):
seven twenty seven on a flight from Denver to San Francisco,
demanded five hundred thousand dollars cash, and parachuted out over
Utah with the money. Unlike Cooper, though McCoy was caught
within days. Authorities arrested him with four hundred ninety nine thousand,
nine hundred and seventy dollars of the ransom in his possession.
McCoy's exploit immediately raised eyebrows in the FBI. Could this

(55:53):
be the same man as D. B. Cooper pulling a
heist again. McCoy did bear a resemblance to the Cooper
composite skin and was an expert skydiver with Army jump training.
The Bureau initially believed that they might have cracked the
Cooper case, and reportedly even charged McCoy with the Cooper
hijacking for a time. McCoy, however, was in his hometown
in Utah on Thanksgiving. Photographic evidence and family testimony confirmed

(56:17):
this alibi. Moreover, at twenty nine years old, he was
much younger than witnesses estimates of Dan Cooper's age, who
put him in his mid forties. After McCoy's arrest, an
FBI agent was quoted saying that he thought McCoy was Cooper,
but officially the bureau eventually classified McCoy as an unrelated copycat.
McCoy was convicted of his own hijacking and given a

(56:38):
forty five year sentence. He famously escaped prison in nineteen
seventy four, using a fake gun made of plaster and
commandeering a garbage truck, and was killed in a shootout
with FBI agents shortly thereafter. To this day, a fringe
of Cooper investigators believe that Richard Floyd McCoy junior was
the man himself, but the FBI stands by the conclusion

(56:59):
that differences in age, appearance, and modus operandi rule him out.
Aside from McCoy, though, the nineteen seventies saw many other
suspects rise and fall in the Dan Cooper case, some
were serious candidates, others verged on the bazaar. In late
nineteen seventy one, some speculated that the hijacker might have
been John List, an infamous New jerseyman who just weeks

(57:20):
before the Cooper hijacking had murdered his entire family and
then disappeared. List was of a similar age and build
war glasses, and vanished with a need for cash. The
FBI did a cursory check, but Liszt, who was a
fugitive until nineteen eighty nine when he was caught living
under an alias, was later ruled out definitively. He had
no skydiving background and his personality did not fit Cooper's profile.

(57:44):
This theory mostly lived on in amateur salute circles and
faded once List was captured into story known. By nineteen
seventy three, The FBI's working theory, heavily influenced by Himmelsbach,
was that Dan Cooper likely died in the jump. In
summer nineteen seve teventy three, FBI and local teams staged
experimental recreations of the jump, pushing weighted dummies out of

(58:06):
the same aft stairs of a seven twenty seven in flight.
To narrow down the landing zone. They analyzed wind speeds,
parachute drift and concluded an area near the southern flank
of Mount Saint Helens might have been the landing zone.
Yet intensive searches there also yielded nothing. The natural environment
seemed to have swallowed Dan Cooper without a trace. The
legacy of Cooper in the nineteen seventies wasn't just an

(58:28):
investigative concern. It led directly to changes in aviation security.
By early nineteen seventy two, the FAA mandated that all
Boeing seven twenty sevens be retrofitted with a simple device
called the Cooper Vane, a mechanical latch that prevents the
rear stairway from being lowered in flight. In addition, the
unprecedented success of Cooper's ransom extortion contributed to the push

(58:50):
for strict airport security screenings. By nineteen seventy three, the
FAA required that all passengers and bags be screened by
metal detectors and X ray machines before boarding. The era
of easily carrying guns or bombs onto planes was ending,
largely in response to the wave of skyjackings that climaxed
with Cooper's escapade. These measures soon dramatically reduced the frequency

(59:13):
for hijackings for ransom. In that sense, Cooper's lasting legacy
was inadvertently making us s guy safer, or at least
forcing the government to make them safer. But throughout the
mid to late nineteen seventies, the Dan Cooper case slowly
turned cold. Leads began to dwindle. Agents and field offices
would occasionally get a tip. A man in Organ bragged

(59:34):
at a bar about being the Skyjacker. A woman in
California reported that her ex husband had a green parachute
and extra cash. After nineteen seventy one, an incarcerated felon
claimed that his cellmate confessed to being Dan Cooper. The
FBI chased all of these leads, often publicly dismissing them,
but quietly checking backgrounds and fingerprints. All came up empty.

(59:55):
Behind the scenes, profilers tried to sketch Cooper's psychological portrait.
The FBI believed that Cooper was likely familiar with both
aviation and the Pacific Northwest. His calmness suggested military or
at least aviation experience. The use of the name Dan Cooper,
which happened to be the name of a French language
comic book, hero A Canadian Air Force pilot in a

(01:00:16):
popular Belgian comic series was a tantalizing clue. Could our
hijacker have chosen that alias from a comic he read
during childhood or while stationed overseas. It pointed to perhaps
a Canadian connection or someone who had been in Europe,
But that clue, like so many others, led nowhere concrete
by nineteen seventy seven. In nineteen seventy eight, the active

(01:00:37):
Norjack Task Force had been massively reduced. Agent Ralph Himmelsbach
still publicly adamant that Dan Cooper died, retired from the
FBI in nineteen eighty and even authored a book about
the case called Noorjack in nineteen eighty six. In that
book and in subsequent interviews, Himmelsbach reiterated his belief that
Cooper's get rich quick stunt had ended in fatal failure

(01:00:58):
out in the woods. He noted that none of the
ransom money had ever shown up in circulation, not a
single bill, which to him, was evidenced that the money
and by implication, Cooper's body, was out there decaying somewhere
in the elements. However, one early retired FBI agent's opinion
did not close the case. In fact, the Cooper investigation
was about to get a jumpstart from an unexpected discovery

(01:01:21):
at the dawn of the new decade, one that would
electrify the public enforce the FBI to rethink some of
its assumptions. On Sunday, February tenth, nineteen eighty, over eight

(01:01:43):
years after Dan Cooper vanished, an astonishing discovery was made
on the banks of the Columbia River. That afternoon, eight
year old Brian Ingram was playing on a sandy stretch
of riverbank known as Tina Barr, about nine miles downstream
from Vancouver, Washington. Brian's family was paid nicking on the
Columbia's shoreline, and the boy had begun digging in the
sand to build a campfire pit. As he scraped and

(01:02:06):
raked the sand, Brian uncovered a tattered bundle of water
logged twenty dollars bills. Surprised, he dug further and found
two more bundles. In total, three clump packets of currency
were unearthed from the riverbank. The Ingrams immediately recognized the
potential significance. Just about everyone in Washington and Oregon knew
the legend of D. B. Cooper's missing ransom money. Brian's

(01:02:29):
father carefully collected the disintegrating bills and turned them over
to the FBI. In all, the bundles contained roughly fifty
eight hundred dollars and twenty dollars notes two hundred and
ninety individual bills, though many were fragmentary. Crucially, when an
FBI agent on the phone asked mister Ingram to read
some serial numbers off the bills, they matched the ransom

(01:02:49):
money from the Cooper hijacking. It was the first physical
evidence related to the case that had been found in
nearly a decade. The bills were still bound with rubber
bands and arranged in two complete packets of one hundred
each and a partial packet of ninety, exactly as they
had been when given to Dan Cooper. The FBI lab
confirmed these notes were indeed part of the ransom. The

(01:03:11):
serial numbers corresponded to the list of ten thousand dollars
twenties that had been prepared in Seattle back in nineteen
seventy one. The discovery at Tina Barr set off a
new wave of excitement and speculation. How did fifty eight
hundred dollars of Cooper's money end up buried in the
sand along the Columbia River, some twenty miles from the
suspected drop zone near Aeriel and on the opposite side

(01:03:32):
of the Columbia from where most of the search had focused.
The location was downstream of Vancouver and not directly connected
to the Lewis River, which empties into the Columbia farther downstream.
This perplexing find raised many questions and a few answers.
FBI agents and scientists examined the condition of the bills
for clues. The bundles were in pretty rough shape. The

(01:03:53):
outer bills were heavily decayed, and all the notes had
fused together in clumps. Yet some details were telling. The
rubber bands binding them were intact, though brittle. If the
money had been continuously exposed to the elements since nineteen
seventy one, the bands likely would have disintegrated far sooner.
Sediment analysis suggested that the bills had been submerged and

(01:04:15):
then deposited in the sand by water action. A consulting
hydrologist noted that the edges of the bundles were rounded
and the bills matted together, indicating that they were moved
by river currents, rather than buried intentionally by hand. It
was believed that the money probably washed into the Columbia
from one of its tributaries, like the Lewis River, and
then became lodged in that sand bar by natural forces. However,

(01:04:39):
this hypothesis introduced some contradictions. If the money came from
the Lewis River, upstream where Cooper presumably landed, how did
these separate bundles remain together. Why were ten bills missing
from one packet with their being ninety instead of one hundred,
And if they floated freely, why weren't the rubber bands
long gone. One theory posited by geologists was that the

(01:05:00):
the bundles might have been buried in sediments upstream and
then dredged up by the Portland area dredging projects in
nineteen seventy four, with the dredge sand later deposited at
Tina Bar. Another theory suggested a nineteen seventy seven flood
of the Columbia could have uprooted a buried cash and
redeposited it there. The FBI tested sand from the bundles
and consulted experts on diatoms microscopic algae to estimate when

(01:05:24):
the money might have been in the water. This analysis
later indicated that the money had entered the water at
least several months after the late November hijacking, possibly in
spring or summer, when certain algae blooms occurred. This was
consistent with the dredge or flood theories. For all these
scientific conjecture, one troubling possibility remained. The Tina Bar money

(01:05:45):
find might imply that Dan Cooper or someone planted the
money there deliberately years after the hijacking, as a decoy
or in an attempt to recover it later. If Cooper
had survived the jump but lost or buried some of
the loot, perhaps he disposed to it along the river
at a later date. Agents considered, for instance, whether Cooper
could have landed safely, then traveled, or had an accomplice

(01:06:07):
bury some money on the river bank to mislead investigators.
But even then that seemed like a bit of an
odd move. Why would you sacrifice fifty eight hundred dollars
of hard won cash. After negotiations, young Brian Ingram was
allowed to keep a portion of the found money as
a reward. In nineteen eighty six, after the FBI painstakingly
cataloged and preserved the bills. About three thousand dollars was

(01:06:29):
returned to the Ingram family. In two thousand and eight, Brian,
then an adult, auctioned off fifteen of the Cooper bills
for a total of thirty seven thousand dollars, two collectors,
ironically netting far more in value than their three hundred
dollars face value. The remaining recovered Cooper bills, some still
stuck together, became highly sought after artifacts of the only

(01:06:50):
unsolved skyjacking in US history. For the FBI, the Tina
barfind breathed new life into the Cooper case. In nineteen eighty,
they began recanvassing the entire area, searching up and down
the Columbia shoreline for any other evidence, perhaps a parachute
shroud Cooper's briefcase, or even human remains. Nothing else was recovered,

(01:07:10):
but the discovery proved that at least part of the
ransom made it out of the plane and into the wild.
It deepened the mystery. It answered one question, yes, the
money did go into the wilderness with Cooper, but raised
many more about Cooper's fate and the chain of events
that led to those particular bundles at that beach. The
discovery of this money also solidified Cooper's legend in popular culture.

(01:07:33):
The story was again splashed in newspapers nationwide. After years
of nothing, here was a clue, literally unearthed by a child.
It rekindled the public fascination and inspired the first feature
film about the case. In nineteen eighty one, Hollywood released
The Pursuit of D. B. Cooper, a fictionalized adventure film
starring Treat Williams as an ex soldier who survived the

(01:07:55):
jump and is chased by an insurance investigator played by
Robert Duvall. Loosely based on speculation, the movie reflected the
enduring desire to imagine an answer to Cooper's fate, usually
one in which he survives to enjoy his spoils, even
if realities suggested otherwise. By nineteen eighty one, though with
no new evidence following the discovery of this cache, the

(01:08:16):
FBI again found the trail turning cold. The ransom bills
from Brian Ingram's find were exhaustively tested. For example, the
Bureau checked them for pollen or unusual chemicals, but nothing
useful was gleaned beyond the known sand and algae. No
fingerprints were recoverable from the degraded notes. Dan Cooper, if
he was still alive, never attempted to spend the remaining

(01:08:39):
one hundred and ninety four thousand dollars. None of those
serial numbers ever surfaced in circulation or bank deposits nationwide.
As the nineteen eighties progressed, the Nordjack case transitioned into
a monitoring status. Agents would still check out the occasional tip,
but the full court press of the nineteen seventies was
largely over. Time was not on the investigator's side. Witness

(01:09:00):
memories were fading, physical evidence like the cigarette butts and
tear had been lost or spoiled, and if Cooper was
still alive, he was aging into his fifties or sixties,
possibly already dead from natural causes. Yet the saga of D. B.
Cooper was far from forgotten. If anything, it was metastasizing
into a modern legend, and a bunch of amateur sleuths

(01:09:21):
and aspiring code breakers were taking up the cause, determined
to solve the case, even as official efforts waned more
after the break, even after the FBI's initial investigation slowed,
the mystery of d B. Cooper continued to attract independent
investigators and ignite periodic burst of activity with each tantalizing

(01:09:44):
new clue. Throughout the nineteen eighties, nineties, and two thousands,
a sleuthing subculture grew around the Cooper case. Authors, journalists,
retired lawmen, and enthusiastic amateurs who poured over the FBI files,
hunted for physical evidence in the Pacific Northwest, and chase
down suspects on their own. One such sleuth was Thomas Kaye,

(01:10:05):
a paleontologist turned detective who in the late two thousands
led a team called the Citizen Sleuths, examining the Cooper
Case with modern technology. In two thousand seven, the FBI,
perhaps recognizing fresh eyes might help, released some previously secret
evidence for outside analysis, including Cooper's clip on tie. Kay's
team put the tie under an electron microscope and found

(01:10:28):
curious particles lodged in the fabric, titanium and rare earth
metals like pure serium and strontium sulfide. These substances were
extremely uncommon in nineteen seventy one, found mainly in certain
high tech or lab settings, for instance, at aerospace manufacturing
facilities or research labs. This led to speculation that Cooper

(01:10:49):
might have been an engineer or technician in the aviation
or chemicals industry, perhaps even at Boeing or a contractor,
since Seattle was a hub for Boeing and other cutting
edge metallurgy owe theory posited by researcher Eric Gulis was
that Cooper's job might have involved working with titanium alloys
at a company like Remcrew Titanium or Technotronics, both of

(01:11:09):
which operated in the Portland area. The TI analysis did
not prove anyone's identity, but it did add an intriguing
piece to Cooper's profile. He might not have been a
typical outdoorsman or rogue, but rather someone with a technical
background who worked ties to work and had exposure to
exotic materials. Another scientific approach was taken with the diorama

(01:11:30):
like evidence on the ransom money. In two thousand and nine,
geological experts studied diatoms fossilized algae on the Tina bar
bills and concluded that the type and life cycle of
the diatom suggested the money was deposited in the river
months after the hijacking, likely in spring or early summer
nineteen seventy two, when a certain group of species bloomed.

(01:11:50):
This reinforced the idea that the money did not simply
fall into the water immediately following the parachute jump, but
may have moved later by flood or human intervention. However,
at sent a time machine, these findings remained circumstantial and
open to interpretation. Through the nineteen nineties and two thousands,
the FBI continued to receive occasional tips and leads. Every

(01:12:11):
so often, the media would report that the Bureau was
testing a DNA sample from the tie against the new
suspects DNA or checking a newly surfaced piece of evidence
like a rotting parachute. For example, in two thousand and eight,
the same year that Citizens Loose were analyzing the tie,
children digging in a field near Amboy, Washington, not far
from the suspected drop zone, unearthed a tangled piece of

(01:12:33):
silk parachute fabric. Excitement surged that Cooper's parachute may have
been found. The FBI consulted Earl Cossey, the same parachute
provider from nineteen seventy one, to identify it. It turned
out to be a World War II era pilot emergency
chute not related to Dan Cooper at all, likely left
from a military crash decades earlier. This false alarm did, however,

(01:12:55):
remind everyone that surviving a jump in that area was feasible.
The parachute belonged longed to Marine Lieutenant Floyd Walling, who
bailed out of his fighter plane in a storm in
nineteen forty five over the same patch of woods and
survived an eight mile trek to safety. Cooper's jump profile
was eerily similar. Perhaps he too, could have lived through it.

(01:13:15):
The FBI's official positions throughout all of these years remained cautious.
They never found conclusive proof of Cooper's fate. Internally, many
agents sided with Ralph Himmelsbach in his view that Cooper
likely died, but they could not close the case on
a hunch. Technically, if Cooper was still alive, he was
a wanted fugitive guilty of air piracy and extortion, crimes

(01:13:37):
that under US law do not have a statute of limitations.
The FBI had actually filed an indictment against John Doe
aka Dan Cooper in absentia to ensure this in twenty eleven.
On the fortieth anniversary of the hijacking, the Bureau made
a surprising announcement they were looking into a promising lead
based on new information from a retired law enforcement The

(01:14:01):
lead related to a man named Lynn Doyle Cooper or
el D. Cooper. A woman named Marla Cooper had come
forward telling a fascinating family tale. She claimed that as
an eight year old in nineteen seventy one, she heard
her two uncles L. D. Cooper and another uncle plotting
something suspicious over Thanksgiving. Her uncle l D, she said,

(01:14:21):
came home to their house in Sister's, Oregon the day
after the hijacking, quote bruised and bloody, unquote, claiming that
he had been in a car accident. According to Marla,
the family quietly suspected for years that L. D. Had
been the skyjacker. He was a war veteran, fitting the
FBI's profile, loved the Dan Cooper comic books, and had
outdoors experience as a logger. He also lived in the

(01:14:43):
Pacific Northwest and was familiar with the area where the
jump occurred. The clincher, one of Marla's uncles, she suspected,
was an accomplice, worked as an engineer at Boeing Marla
even provided the FBI with an old guitar strap of L. D.
Cooper's to test for fingerprints or DNA. The Bureau tested
what it could, but the strap did not yield usable fingerprints.

(01:15:05):
They did find that a partial DNA profile lifted from
the Tie a few years earlier did not match one
of LD. Cooper's surviving relatives, but this was far from conclusive.
The Tie DNA might not have even been the hijackers,
and could have come from a Boeing employee or flight
attendant who handled it. An FBI special agent, Fred Gutt
said in twenty eleven that L. D. Cooper was not

(01:15:26):
being ruled out as a suspect. The story made headlines,
after all, there was a new suspect after decades, but
ultimately tangible proof was lacking. L. D. Cooper had died
in nineteen ninety nine, so he could not be interrogated,
and some investigators noted that LD had no parachute training,
which either made him an odd fit or a gutze

(01:15:47):
nov as if he were the culprit in any case.
By twenty thirteen, the FBI quietly let the LD. Cooper
lead drop off the radar neither indicting him posthumously nor
clearing him outright. The early twenty ten s saw a
few more suspect flurries. A private investigator named skip Portius
and a filmmaker Nora Efron, were involved in bringing to

(01:16:08):
like the story of Kenneth Peter Christiansen, a former Northwest
Orient flight purser who had been quietly suspected by his
own brother. Kenneth Christiansen had been a paratrooper and was
stationed in the Pacific. Had worked for the airline, which
meant he had known aircraft like the seven twenty seven,
and allegedly made a bit of a deathbed confession to
his brother Lyle, telling him there's something you should know,

(01:16:31):
but I cannot tell you. Lyle Christiansen later saw a
Dan Cooper composite on a TV show and felt it
was the spitting image of his brother Kenneth. In twenty ten,
New York Magazine ran a story on Christiansen as a suspect.
They even got Florence Schaffner to look at Kenneth Christensen's photo.
She commented that the man's ears and lips and forehead

(01:16:52):
looked quite similar to Dan Cooper's, though she could not
be sure after so many years, The FBID checked out
Christiansen and officially stated he did not fit. They believed
he was too short, too light, and had lighter eyes
than described. Retired FBI agent Ralph Himmelsbach told New York
Magazine that Kenneth Christensen was a poor match physically. Christensen

(01:17:12):
had died in nineteen ninety four. After his death, his
family reportedly found gold, coins and extra cash in his possession,
but nothing like the ransom. Despite some intriguing coincidences, the
FBI did not find any more direct, incriminating evidence tying
him to the hijacking. Another modern suspect who drew some
considerable attention was Robert Rackstraw, a former US Army helicopter

(01:17:34):
pilot and ex Cohn. In twenty sixteen through eighteen, an
amateur team led by TV producer Tom Colbert heavily pushed
Rackstraw as the real Dan Cooper. Brackstraw had a colorful
military background with demolition and parachute training. Was in his
late twenties in nineteen seventy one, though that made him
younger than eight witness accounts of Dan Cooper, and had

(01:17:55):
a checkered post military career involving fake identities and various
legal troubles. Colbert's team went as far as trying to
decode alleged hidden messages in some letters sent by a D. B.
Cooper to newspapers in the months after the hijacking, claiming
that those codes spelled out Raxstraw's name. It made for
dramatic television in a twenty sixteen History Channel documentary titled D. B.

(01:18:17):
Cooper Case Closed, but when journalists asked Rackstraw, then in
his seventies, if he was Cooper, he slightly said no,
but seemed to enjoy the attention. His attorney equipped, He's
not D B. Cooper. Everything I've heard is that D. B.
Cooper died and Rackstraw is alive. The FBI had actually
investigated Robert Rackstraw back in the late nineteen seventies for

(01:18:39):
a time, but dropped him from consideration in nineteen seventy
nine due to a lack of any direct evidence. In
the end, Rastraw passed away in twenty nineteen, and while
Colbert's group remains convinced, the FBI never endorsed their theory.
Another suspect surfaced in twenty eighteen. Walter RecA, proposed by
his best friend, a man named Carl Lauren. Lauren released

(01:19:02):
audio recordings he claimed were of RecA confessing in detail
to the Cooper hijacking before his death in twenty fourteen.
The recordings and an accompanying book D B. Cooper and Me,
asserted that Walter RecA, a former military paratrooper, not only
survived the jump, but actually encountered a dump truck driver
on a road that night whom he asked for a lift.

(01:19:23):
Carl Lauren says that Walter RecA told him he landed
near Cleelam, Washington, far east of the search zone, and
eventually spent the ransom on a house, a car, and
other assets, stashing some in a Canadian safe deposit box.
This sensational story made news, but skeptics pointed out inconsistencies.
The FBI responded with a polite statement that since they

(01:19:44):
had closed the case in twenty sixteen, they would not
comment on specific new tips or suspects, noting that no
credible evidence had emerged that fundamentally changed their conclusions. Indeed,
to that end, on July twelfth, twenty sixteen, the FBI
officially announced that the active investigation was being suspended. In
a press release, the bureau said that it was reallocating

(01:20:06):
resources to more urgent priorities after forty five years of
fruitless pursuit. They summarized the case highlights and acknowledged its
iconic status, but essentially declared that unless someone came forward
with Cooper's identity or the remaining money, nor Jack would
remain unsolved. An FBI spokesperson stated that wild tips would
still be recorded, none to date have resulted in a

(01:20:28):
definitive identification of the hijacker, and that although new information
has at times produced plausible theories, none has yielded the
necessary proof of culpability beyond a reasonable doubt. In the
absence of that proof, the statement said, continuing to devote
investigative resources was no longer justified. Effectively, the d B
Cooper case was being filed away in the inactive archives,

(01:20:50):
a rare admission of defeat on an infamous crime, but
the FBI's closure did not dissuade the legion of Cooper sleuths,
if anything at galp them. Today. Online forums and annual
Cooper conventions keep the quest alive, dissecting every known fact
and rumor, but officially the case of D. B. Cooper
is considered unsolved and suspended. Short of someone uncovering Dan

(01:21:14):
Cooper's remains or a deathbed confession with rock solid proof,
it's likely to remain a fascinating historical who done it.

(01:21:37):
It has now been over half a century since the
night of November twenty fourth, nineteen seventy one, and the
legend of D. B. Cooper or Dan Cooper looms larger
than ever. A mix of folklore, pop culture phenomenon, and
a symbol of one of aviation's great unsolved crimes, the
Cooper hijacking retains the distinction of being the only unsolved
airline hijacking in American history. Every other domestic hijacker who

(01:22:01):
demanded ransom or diversion was eventually caught or identified, except
for the man calling himself Dan Cooper. The FBI's decision
to close their active investigation in twenty sixteen seem to
acknowledge that the case will never be definitively solved. However,
closed is relative. The FBI still holds all of the evidence,

(01:22:22):
and if tomorrow someone found a skeleton in the woods
with a parachute and one hundred ninety four thousand dollars
in cash. You can bet that the Bureau would test
every fiber of it. In interviews, agents have said that
they would gladly reopen the case for some bona fide
new information, but barring that, nor Jack is in limbo.
The case, files decades of reports, analyzes, and tips, stands

(01:22:43):
both a monument to an exhaustive effort and a reminder
of a rare defeat for federal law enforcement. Despite the
fact that he allegedly endangered dozens of lives and committed
a serious crime. Dan or D. B. Cooper has been
embraced in popular lore as a sort of modern day
outlaw folk hero, particularly in the Pacific Northwest. The Cooper
story carries a mystique akin to Legends of the Wild West,

(01:23:06):
a scene as the slick every man who beat the system,
sticking it to the big airlines in the FEDS, hearting
no one except Navy himself in the process. Over the years,
this mythos has only grown. There have been numerous songs
written about him, country tunes like the Ballad of D. B. Cooper,
as well as many books and at least two feature films.

(01:23:27):
More recently, Dan Cooper Got a Tongue in cheek nod
in the TV series Lokie, which imagined the hijacking was
a prank by the norsecot of mischief. He's been referenced
in countless other shows, everything from prison break to news radio,
and remains a fixture in true crime media, including documentaries
and dramatizations. Cooper's legend is very much alive in the

(01:23:47):
Pacific Northwest. For many years, the tiny town of Ariel, Washington,
near Lake Merwin, close to the presumed drop zone, hosted
an annual D. B. Cooper Day's celebration on the weekend
after Thanksgiving, timing that commemorated the hijackings anniversary. The Aerial
Store in Tavern was the focal point for Cooper fans,
hosting lookalike contest with people dressing in black suits and

(01:24:10):
clip on ties, some even jumping off small heights with parachutes,
screenings of documentaries and talks by authors and investigators. People
would raise glasses of bourbon and seven up to toast
the mystery Man. Though the original tavern owners retired and
the event became sporadic, the spirit persists Even well into
the twenty tens. You could find gatherings of Cooper Officionado's

(01:24:31):
swapping theories over beers each November in Southwest Washington. Cooper's legacy,
though is not all celebratory. As I touched on earlier,
he prompted real changes in aviation practices. We mentioned the
installation of the Cooper vane on seven twenty sevens and
similar aircraft, effectively a mechanical lock on aft stairs during flights.
This simple device prevented copycats from attempting the same escape method. Additionally,

(01:24:55):
this heist, occurring amid a glut of skyjackings, hastened to
the adoption of strict reboarding screenings of passengers. By January
nineteen seventy three, a little over a year after the
Cooper hijacking, the FAA, under pressure from a frustrated public
tired of skyjackings, required all passengers to pass through metal
detectors or physical screenings. Though in a sense, Dan Cooper

(01:25:17):
was one of the catalysts that ended the golden age
of skyjacking. After nineteen seventy two, the frequency of hijackings
in US airspace plummeted. Air piracy for ransom largely died
out as a phenomenon, only for terrorism to become the
new threat in later decades. The one could argue that D. B.
Cooper's infamous act inadvertently made the sky safer by forcing

(01:25:38):
security improvements. As the FBI stepped back, the Cooper case
became the playground of citizen detectives. It's a case that
invited amateur involvement because so many pieces of evidence and
leads are publicly accessible, yet it lacks a resolution. This
is similar to some other famous unsolved cases, such as
the Zodiac Killer, but D. B. Cooper's is unique in

(01:25:59):
that it was a one time event with a contained
set of clues. The puzzle like nature matching suspects to
the composite analyzing weather data digging for buried money seems
to attract people with a treasure hunt or puzzle solving mindset.
There are websites like drop Zone and the dB Cooper
Forum where discussions dissect every detail from the type of

(01:26:20):
clip on tie that he wore purchased at J. C.
Penny in the nineteen sixties to these specific serial numbers
of the found money in the manufacturing dates of the parachutes.
Some independence loose have even filed Foyer request to get
FBI files or have managed to get old evidence, like
the nineteen seventy two letters allegedly from Cooper released for examination.
These community driven efforts have yielded intriguing tidbits, like discovering

(01:26:44):
that one of the post hijacking letters contained a numerical
code which, when decoded using a simple cipher, referenced coordinates
in the Northwest. Though who sent the letter remains unknown,
all the theories aside. The figure of Dan or D. B.
Cooper stands as a test to the power of an
unsolved mystery. He is both a real criminal and a
folk character, now occupying that hazy space between history and legend.

(01:27:08):
The final verdict of D. B. Cooper is likely one
that the public itself renders. The case is unsolved, but
it is not due to a lack of trying or fascination.
The case remains a fixture in the American consciousness because
it combines elements so rarely seen together mystery, daring, crime, adventure,
and complete absence of closure. It has invited each generation

(01:27:30):
to project onto its their own imagination. Maybe he got
away with it and is sipping my ties on a
beach under an assumed name. Maybe he died cold and
alone in the woods, a broken body that eventually became
one with the earth. Maybe he was someone we would
never suspect who went back to an ordinary life, carrying
a monumental secret to his grave. As of today, the

(01:27:52):
fate of Dan or D B. Cooper is still open
to interpretation. The FBI has put its files on the shelf,
concluding that the case is closed. It's a mystery forever
and always. Cooper's case endures as a challenge and enduring
cold case caper that invites anyone to try their hand
at solving it, and until the day comes that definitive
evidence surfaces. If it ever does, we're left with the story,

(01:28:14):
the myth, and the tantalizing question who was Dan Cooper
and did he beat the odds? Until that question is answered,
the story of Dan Cooper or D B. Cooper will
remain unresolved. Hey, thank you all for listening. This has

(01:28:43):
been the three hundredth episode of the podcast, and I
wanted to do something a little special. This episode is
a bit longer than our usual episodes, but uh yeah,
it was kind of a beast to record, so I'm
gonna stop talking now anyhow, Thank you all for listening
to three hundred episodes of the show. It really means
a lot. I appreciate each and every one of you.
I'm going to go now, probably go drink some water,
but uh, take care, stay healthy. Talk to you later

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