Experts Narrow Down The Possibilities Of The D.B. Cooper Mystery
In 1971, a man boarded a plane, pulled off a successful hijacking, and parachuted off the plane, vanishing into thin air. It sounds improbable, but it’s something that really happened — and to this day, we’re no closer to solving the mystery.
Let’s delve into the D.B. Cooper saga. While there are very few conclusive answers, there are plenty of theories, suspects, and possibilities — and a chance the case might still be solved.
It happened on the night before Thanksgiving.
On November 24, 1971, an unassuming man walked up to the Northwest Orient ticket counter at Portland International Airport and bought a one-way ticket to Seattle-Tacoma (Sea-Tac) International Airport using cash.
In those days, passengers didn’t have to show ID for domestic flights. The man said his name was Dan Cooper. He was wearing a business suit and was carrying a small bag.
The man boarded the flight.
Sitting in the last row, Cooper ordered a cocktail. Just after the plane took off on schedule at 2:50 PM, he handed a note to flight attendant Florence Schaffner, who was also seated at the back of the plane.
Schaffner thought the man was flirting until he told her he had an explosive device. He opened his briefcase and showed her something that appeared to be dynamite.
Cooper had a few demands.
The demands were relayed to authorities on the ground at Sea-Tac. Cooper wanted $200,000 along with four parachutes. He also implied that he might take a hostage.
Upon landing at Sea-Tac, Cooper said he wanted passengers to remain seated while another flight attendant, Tina Mucklow, brought him the money.
Authorities sprung into action.
Passengers weren’t informed of the situation, and the pilot circled the area around Sea-Tac for two hours to give the Seattle Police Department and FBI time to assemble on the ground.
Cooper insisted that Mucklow, the terrified flight attendant, sit beside him during the flight to act as a liaison. As the plane circled, he showed familiarity with the terrain underneath.
The plane finally landed.
The handover went relatively smoothly — the money and parachutes were given to Cooper, and the passengers were released from the plane.
Cooper even tried to tip the flight attendants with the ransom money, but they refused. After the passengers were off the plane, there were seven people left onboard — the flight crew and Cooper.
Cooper grew impatient.
Authorities wanted to talk with Cooper, but he denied their requests. Instead, he instructed the pilots to take off once more, with specific instructions.
He wanted them to fly southeast toward Mexico City at the slowest airspeed possible, at a low altitude of 10,000 feet, with the landing gear deployed and the cabin unpressurized. It was obvious that he was planning to jump.
After takeoff, the flight crew entered the cockpit.
At this point, Cooper was never seen again. At 8 pm, the pilots noticed a warning light indicating that the 727’s aft staircase had been deployed, along with a drop in air pressure.
At 8:13, the crew experienced a bump — one that would be consistent with a person’s weight on those aft stairs, followed by jumping off. The plane was over the suburbs of Portland, Oregon.
The story became an immediate sensation.
Reporters incorrectly transcribed the name “Dan Cooper” as “D.B. Cooper,” giving the famous hijacker his best-known pseudonym.
It was known when and where Cooper parachuted off the plane, but variables made it tough to pin down a search area, as the location could vary wildly depending on when — or if — Cooper pulled his ripcord.
The flight crew was extensively interviewed.
Mucklow, Schaffner, and the pilots told authorities everything they knew. While there wasn’t much to go on, there were a few intriguing angles.
Of note, Cooper showed familiarity with the terrain around Seattle and seemed to know at least a little bit about flight mechanics, as evidenced by the instructions he gave the captain.
Was Cooper a veteran?
A theory quickly emerged that Cooper may have been a veteran, as he seemed relatively confident in his ability to parachute out of a moving plane.
Additionally, Cooper’s approximate age would have meant that he could have been in his 20s during the Korean War, or even possibly during World War II.
No leads were found in the early days.
Here, Larry Lewman, assistant state medical examiner for Oregon, shows a skull that was found near Estacada, Oregon.
While the discovery of human remains always warrants further investigation, there was no indication that this skull belonged to Cooper. This also shows that investigators found themselves grasping at straws, as no sign of Cooper or his money had surfaced.
In 1978, there was a minor breakthrough.
Near Castle Rock, Washington, under the flight path of the hijacked plane, a deer hunter found the instruction placard for a 727 with directions for lowering the aft stairs.
This was a major find, as it represented a seemingly direct connection to the hijacking. But frustrated investigators weren’t able to find anything more than the simple placard.
Some of the ransom money was finally recovered.
Finally, in February of 1980 — nearly nine years after the hijacking — eight-year-old Brian Ingram found three packets of cash while on a family vacation.
The money was found on the sandy banks of the Columbia River at Tena Bar, nine miles from Vancouver, Washington.
The money was in bad shape.
Unsurprisingly, the bills had partially disintegrated after being exposed to the elements for years. That said, there was still enough to investigate.
FBI technicians confirmed that the money came from the initial Cooper ransom. In all, the packets contained about $5,800 of the $200,000 ransom.
The money had likely been carried down the river.
While there was speculation that the money had been intentionally buried before getting exposed, a hydrologist said that this was unlikely.
Instead, the most likely hypothesis is that the money came down some distance away, and had been carried down the river. This hypothesis didn’t explain what had happened to the rest of the ransom.
It was a major find.
Search teams combed the nearby area, along with areas upstream where Cooper may have landed or crashed.
Unfortunately, much like the case of the instruction placard, the money was a singular piece of evidence that didn’t lead to any further findings.
Years later, the money was divided up.
The FBI hung onto some of the bills for evidence, and the remainder was divided between Northwest Orient’s insurer and the Ingram family.
Because of the historical importance of the bills, Brian Ingram was able to sell them at auction for more than what they were worth, auctioning off 15 of them in 2008 for $37,000.
The money is the only confirmed evidence recovered.
While it seems likely that the placard came from the Cooper hijacking, this wasn’t confirmed. Other supposed pieces of physical evidence have been either debunked or remain inconclusive.
That means that, as of the time of writing, the money found at Tena Bar is still the only physical evidence recovered from outside of the aircraft.
Was this Cooper’s parachute?
Charter boat captain Blake Payne is seen here holding a piece of fabric that he dredged up from the bottom of the Columbia River.
Payne believed that the scrap was part of Cooper’s parachute, but the FBI was unable to confirm this.
There’s no shortage of suspects.
Retired pilot Robert Rackstraw had a physical resemblance to Cooper, and also was known to be comfortable with aerial stunts and criminal activities.
While Rackstraw’s profile fit Cooper, there was nothing concrete to go on — and one of the flight attendants said that she “did not find any similarities” between Rackstraw and her recollection. Rackstraw died in 2019.
A similar hijacking took place the following year.
In April, 1972, Richard Floyd McCoy Jr. hijacked a Boeing 727 (the same plane Cooper used), got his ransom money and parachute, and jumped off via the plane’s aft stairs.
It was the exact same strategy used by Cooper, only in this case the perpetrator was immediately caught. Was Richard McCoy the same person as D.B. Cooper? We may never know, as McCoy was gunned down in 1974 after escaping from prison.
Cooper had to be familiar with skydiving.
It’s this trait that led investigators to Ted Braden, an accomplished skydiver and felon. Braden was described as someone with a “secret death wish” who would make his money in shady ways.
Adding to the evidence supporting Braden as Cooper was the fact that he drove a truck in the same general area as the hijacking. Braden died in 2007.
Was it William Smith?
A 2018 article posited that William J. Smith was D.B. Cooper. Smith bore a striking resemblance to the Cooper composite images, and his age lined up as well.
Smith had naval aviation experience as well as railroad experience, which together would have helped him parachute from the plane and then quickly find his way through the wilderness. He passed away in 2018.
There are various sketches.
This image contrasts what Cooper looked like at the time of the hijacking versus what he might have looked like a decade or two later.
It’s tough to believe that Cooper, if he survived, would keep the same hairstyle and overall look, but it’s all that anyone really has to go on.
The case led to changes in the aviation industry.
While widespread security reforms wouldn’t take place until after the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Cooper hijacking did lead to increased security at airports and on aircraft.
This image shows what’s become known as the “Cooper vane” — essentially a small rod on planes that have aft stairs, that prevents the stairs from opening mid-flight.
D.B. Cooper is a pop culture mainstay.
This publicity still shows actor Treat Williams in the film The Pursuit of D.B. Cooper, which was released in 1981.
The movie is largely forgotten today, but it shows how captivated the general public was by the daring hijacking.
What happened to D.B. Cooper?
He may have absconded with the money. He may have crashed into the ground and died. At this stage, more than half a century has passed and many of the main witnesses and suspects are dead.
While the FBI continues to follow up on tips, it appears more and more likely that the mystery of D.B. Cooper will never be solved.
