Nearly 40 years ago, a man who called himself Dan Cooper became the subject of one of the world's most infamous unsolved mysteries. Over time he has grown into a mythical legend, though his story is fact, not fiction. With the recently released news that the FBI might have a credible lead in the case, here is a look back at the case of D.B. Cooper.
Nov. 24, 1971, is remembered as the day the only man in history got away with skyjacking a plane. After 40 years and thousands of suspects, the case of D.B. Cooper remains unsolved. On that cold November night, years before identification was required, a man wearing a suit, raincoat, and dark sunglasses identified himself as Dan Cooper when he purchased his one-way ticket to Seattle.
Cooper boarded the Northwest Orient Airlines flight out of Portland International Airport. As the plane ascended into the sky, Cooper handed the stewardess a note. It read: "I HAVE A BOMB IN MY BRIEFCASE. I WILL USE IT IF NECESSARY. I WANT YOU TO SIT NEXT TO ME. YOU ARE BEING HIJACKED."
Cooper demanded $200,000 and four parachutes. The FBI met the plane on the ground in Seattle and gave Cooper what he asked for. The passengers were allowed to leave, and only the pilot, one co-pilot and a stewardess were on board when the plane took off again, this time headed south.
The pilot was instructed to fly to Mexico at an altitude of less than 10,000 feet. When the plane was about 25 miles northwest of Portland, over the rugged and remote Cascade mountains, Cooper calmly stepped out of the plane carrying $200,000 cash and, with a parachute on his back, jumped into the vast darkness, never to be seen or heard from again.
By the time a search was organized, Cooper was long gone. Many presumed the man dead. The U.S. Attorney General released the serial numbers of the $20 bills that Cooper had been given as ransom; until 1980, none were recovered.
There have been deathbed confessions and hundreds of stories, but after thousands of suspects nothing has ever come to fruition, and the case has never been solved.
There was a legitimate clue in the case found in February 1980. An 8-year-old boy found $5,800 in rotted and decayed $20 bills at the edge of the Columbia River in Washington state. The serial numbers matched the numbers on the bills that the FBI had given in the ransom. The find leads many people to believe that Cooper did die on that fateful night.
In 2011, 40 years after Cooper's jump, Ayn Dietrich, a former analyst with the FBI, said the agency has a credible lead and a new suspect. They are currently testing an item that belonged to the suspect for fingerprints, and said the lead is "looking like our most promising one to date," according to Jalopnik.
Could this years-old mystery finally be solved? Or is it just another clue that will lead into the dark, the same way that D.B. Cooper disappeared that ominous Thanksgiving eve night?
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