D.B. Cooper
The Man Who Hijacked a Plane, Took the Money, and Jumped Into the Night
On the day before Thanksgiving, 1971, a man in a dark suit and sunglasses bought a one-way plane ticket from Portland to Seattle. He sat in the back row. He ordered a bourbon. Then he passed a note to the flight attendant.
The note said he had a bomb. He wanted $200,000 in cash, four parachutes, and a fuel truck waiting in Seattle. If he didn't get them, he would blow up the plane.
He got everything he asked for. He let the passengers go. Then, somewhere over the dark forests of the Pacific Northwest, he jumped out of the back of the plane and vanished forever.
Nobody has ever found him. Nobody knows who he really was. And he remains, to this day, the only unsolved skyjacking in American aviation history.
Nov 24, 1971
A man calling himself "Dan Cooper" — later misreported as "D.B. Cooper" — hijacked Northwest Orient Flight 305. With 36 passengers on board, he calmly negotiated his ransom from the back of a Boeing 727, then disappeared into a rainstorm at 10,000 feet.
$200,000
About $1.5 million in today's money. Delivered in a canvas bag of marked bills.
10,000 ft
In the dark. In the rain. In a business suit and loafers, with no helmet.
45 Years
The longest skyjacking investigation in history. Officially suspended in 2016 — still unsolved.
The Evidence
The Bomb Threat
Cooper passed flight attendant Florence Schaffner a folded note. She thought it was a phone number and slipped it in her pocket unread. He leaned forward and whispered: "Miss, you'd better look at that note. I have a bomb." The note was never recovered — Cooper took it back.
The Tena Bar Discovery
On 10 February 1980 — nine years after the hijacking — an eight-year-old boy named Brian Ingram was digging on the banks of the Columbia River when he found three bundles of rotting banknotes. The serial numbers matched Cooper's ransom exactly: $5,880 of the $200,000. The rest has never been found.
The FBI Composite
The FBI created two composite sketches from descriptions given by the crew. Brown hair. Dark glasses. Mid-forties. Polite. Calm. He knew parachutes and aircraft well enough to ask specifically for military-style chutes — and to know that a Boeing 727 has a rear staircase that can open in flight. Over 1,000 suspects were investigated. None matched.
How the Hijacking Unfolded
Boarding
A man using the name "Dan Cooper" buys a one-way ticket for $20 cash at Portland International Airport and boards Northwest Orient Flight 305. He takes seat 18C — the back of the plane. He orders a bourbon and soda.
The Note
Shortly after takeoff, Cooper passes his note to flight attendant Florence Schaffner. He shows her what appears to be a bomb in his briefcase: red cylinders, wires, a battery. He is completely calm.
The Handoff
The plane lands in Seattle. Police surround it on the tarmac but do nothing. FBI agents deliver the cash in a canvas bag — 10,000 unmarked twenty-dollar bills — along with four parachutes. Cooper releases all 36 passengers and two of the four crew members.
The Jump
Somewhere over the dark, rainy forest between Seattle and Reno, Cooper lowers the rear stairs of the plane and jumps. The crew feel a bump. When the FBI boards the plane in Reno, he is gone — along with the money and one of the parachutes.
NORJAK
The FBI launches "NORJAK" — the Northwest Hijacking investigation. They search thousands of square miles of forest. They find nothing: no parachute, no body, no trace of the money. Not yet.
Tena Bar
Eight-year-old Brian Ingram finds $5,880 of the ransom money rotting on the banks of the Columbia River. The serial numbers match. But the money is in the wrong place — miles from where experts predicted Cooper landed. Nobody can explain it.
Case Suspended
After 45 years and over 1,000 suspects investigated, the FBI officially suspends the active NORJAK investigation. The case remains open. D.B. Cooper has never been identified.
The People in This Story
D.B. Cooper
The alias used in press reports. His real name is still unknown. Witnesses described him as calm, polite, well-dressed, and knowledgeable about aircraft. He did not act like someone doing this for the first time.
Florence Schaffner
The crew member who received Cooper's note and negotiated with him. She later described him as "not cruel or mean" — just focused and determined. She was the last person known to have spoken with him.
Ralph Himmelsbach
The lead FBI investigator who spent years hunting for Cooper. He believed Cooper almost certainly died in the jump — the forest below was dense, the weather was terrible, and a parachute landing in the dark without training is often fatal. He called Cooper "a rotten criminal" and never romanticised the case.
The Question That Remains
Did D.B. Cooper survive the jump? The forest below the flight path is vast and almost impenetrable. The temperature that night was −7°C. He was wearing a business suit and loafers. The parachute he chose was a non-steerable reserve chute — nearly impossible to aim in the dark.
Most experts believe he died in the jump. But the money found on the riverbank is in the wrong place to fit that theory. And nobody has ever found a body, a parachute, or the remaining $194,120.
Read the full book to examine every clue — then decide: did he escape, or did the forest swallow him too?
Get the Full Book
The complete D.B. Cooper mystery. 9 chapters of evidence, suspects, and a question only you can answer.
Part of the Vanished Volume
Ships found empty at sea. Explorers who never came home. Entire colonies that disappeared overnight. The clues are still out there.
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