D.B. Cooper: The Unsolved Hijacking

Overview

Here is what we know for certain. On the afternoon of November 24, 1971 — the day before Thanksgiving — a man in a dark suit, a black tie with a mother-of-pearl clip, and a raincoat walked up to the Northwest Orient Airlines ticket counter at Portland International Airport. He paid $20 in cash for a one-way ticket on Flight 305 to Seattle. The name on the ticket was Dan Cooper.

He boarded the Boeing 727-100, sat in seat 18C (the middle seat of the last row, near the rear stairway), ordered a bourbon and soda, and lit a cigarette. Shortly after takeoff, he handed a note to the flight attendant sitting in the jump seat nearest him — a young woman named Florence Schaffner. She assumed it was his phone number and dropped it in her purse without reading it. He leaned toward her and said, “Miss, you’d better look at that note. I have a bomb.”

The note demanded $200,000 in “negotiable American currency” (approximately $1.5 million in 2026 dollars), four parachutes (two back parachutes, two chest reserves), and a fuel truck standing by in Seattle to refuel the plane. Schaffner walked the note to the cockpit. The captain, William Scott, radioed Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. The FBI and the airline scrambled.

When Flight 305 landed in Seattle, Cooper released the 36 passengers in exchange for the money and parachutes. The flight crew remained on board. Cooper then directed the pilots to fly toward Mexico City, at a low altitude (under 10,000 feet), with the rear stairway lowered, at a speed below 200 knots, and with the wing flaps set at 15 degrees. Somewhere over the heavily forested terrain between Seattle and Reno, Nevada — at approximately 8:13 PM — the crew felt a pressure change indicating that the rear stairs had been deployed. D.B. Cooper stepped into the rainy darkness, 10,000 feet above the ground, and was never seen again.

It is, by a comfortable margin, the most romantic unsolved crime in American history. And more than fifty years later, nobody knows who he was, whether he survived, or where he went.

Origins & History

The name “D.B. Cooper” was itself a product of journalistic confusion. The hijacker had booked his ticket as “Dan Cooper.” In the chaotic early reporting, a Portland journalist contacted a man named D.B. Cooper who lived in the area as a potential suspect. He was quickly cleared, but the name stuck in the press and became the permanent moniker for one of America’s most elusive criminals.

The FBI’s investigation — codenamed NORJAK (Northwest Hijacking) — was one of the longest and most expensive in bureau history. At its peak, it involved hundreds of agents, military units searching thousands of square miles of Pacific Northwest wilderness, and a suspect list that eventually reached more than a thousand names. Every lead was pursued. Every crank call was logged. None of it produced a definitive answer.

The Jump

The conditions of Cooper’s jump were, by any rational assessment, terrible. He jumped at night, in late November, into a rainstorm with temperatures near freezing at altitude. He was wearing a lightweight business suit, loafers, and no helmet. The terrain below was rugged, heavily forested mountains — the Cascade Range and the foothills of southwestern Washington. He had chosen the cheaper, less steerable of the two back parachutes (the other was a dummy, intended as a training chute, but Cooper apparently didn’t know this). He selected a military NB-6 parachute that was functional but outdated, with limited maneuverability.

Two of the four parachutes had been deliberately chosen by the FBI to include one non-functional dummy, reasoning that Cooper would give the dummy to a hostage and use the functional one himself. Cooper’s selection of the functional military parachute over the more expensive sport chute suggested either knowledge of parachuting equipment or simple luck.

Fighter jets were scrambled to follow the 727, but the aircraft’s slow speed and low altitude — unusual for a 727 — made visual tracking difficult in the dark and rain. The crew felt the aft stairway deploy at approximately 8:13 PM and a subsequent pressure change that suggested someone had exited, but the precise jump point was never established. The FBI calculated a probable drop zone in a stretch of heavily wooded terrain near Ariel, Washington, and Lake Merwin. Ground searches found nothing — no parachute, no body, no trace.

The Money

For nine years, there was no physical evidence at all. Then, in February 1980, an eight-year-old boy named Brian Ingram was building a campfire on the sandy banks of the Columbia River at a spot called Tena Bar, about 20 miles downstream from Vancouver, Washington. He found three bundles of water-damaged $20 bills — $5,800 total — partially buried in the sand. The FBI confirmed that the serial numbers matched bills from the ransom.

The discovery raised more questions than it answered. Tena Bar is well outside the FBI’s calculated drop zone. How did the money get there? Had it washed downstream from where Cooper landed (or crashed)? Had someone deposited it there deliberately? Geological analysis of the sand layers around the money suggested it had been deposited sometime after 1974 — possibly much later — but the method of deposit was never determined. The money was heavily degraded and had been in the ground for years.

No other ransom bills have ever surfaced in circulation. The FBI monitored the serial numbers throughout the 1970s and 1980s without a single hit. This fact is one of the strongest pieces of evidence that Cooper did not survive: if he had, why would he never have spent the money?

Key Claims & Suspects

The D.B. Cooper case is unusual among conspiracy theories in that there is no dispute about what happened — only about who did it and whether he survived. The major competing theories center on the identity of the hijacker:

Richard Floyd McCoy Jr. A Vietnam veteran, Army Green Beret, and experienced skydiver, McCoy pulled off a strikingly similar hijacking just five months after the Cooper incident. In April 1972, McCoy hijacked a United Airlines 727 out of Denver, demanded $500,000, and parachuted from the aircraft over Utah. He was caught two days later. The parallels were obvious, and many investigators — including FBI agent Russell Calame — believed McCoy was Cooper. The FBI officially rejected this identification because eyewitnesses on Flight 305 said Cooper did not resemble McCoy. McCoy was killed in 1974 during a shootout following his escape from prison, taking any confession with him.

Robert Rackstraw. A decorated Vietnam veteran with a background in parachuting and demolition, Rackstraw was identified as a Cooper suspect by a team of investigators led by documentarian Tom Colbert in the 2010s. Colbert claimed to have decoded taunting letters sent to newspapers after the hijacking and linked them to Rackstraw. The FBI reviewed the evidence and stated it did not identify Cooper. Rackstraw died in 2019 without being charged.

Kenneth Christiansen. A former Army paratrooper and Northwest Orient purser (flight attendant), Christiansen was nominated by his brother Lyle after a deathbed conversation in which Kenneth allegedly said, “There’s something you should know, but I can’t tell you.” Christiansen matched some eyewitness descriptions but was shorter and lighter than witnesses reported.

Sheridan Peterson. A Vietnam veteran and outdoorsman who lived near the drop zone, Peterson was proposed as a suspect by journalist Eric Ulis. Peterson was the right age, had military experience, and lived in the area, but circumstantial evidence was inconclusive.

The “Unsub” theory. Many investigators believe Cooper was an unknown individual who died in the jump and whose body was never found in the vast, densely forested terrain. Under this theory, Cooper had enough knowledge of aviation to be credible and enough desperation to take an enormous risk, but not enough parachuting expertise to survive a nighttime jump in terrible conditions into mountainous wilderness.

Evidence

The physical evidence in the Cooper case is remarkably thin:

• The ransom money found at Tena Bar. Three bundles of $20 bills, degraded but with serial numbers matching the ransom. How they arrived at Tena Bar remains unexplained.

• The black J.C. Penney clip-on tie. Cooper removed his tie before jumping and left it on the seat. In 2011, citizen scientist Tom Kaye used electron microscopy to identify rare particles on the tie, including unalloyed titanium and stainless steel particles consistent with someone who worked in the chemical or metallurgical industry during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

• Cigarette butts. Cooper smoked Raleigh-brand filter cigarettes during the flight. The butts were collected, and in later years, DNA extraction was attempted. Results have been mixed — the samples yielded a partial DNA profile, but one too degraded for definitive identification.

• Eyewitness descriptions. Flight attendants Florence Schaffner and Tina Mucklow, who had the most contact with Cooper, described him as a white male, approximately 5’10” to 6’0”, 170-180 pounds, mid-40s, with dark brown or black hair and brown eyes. He was calm, polite, and appeared to know something about aviation and parachuting.

• The missing parachute and harness. Cooper took one back parachute and one chest reserve. He cut the cords from the second back parachute (the dummy) to fashion a bag for the money. None of this equipment has been found.

Cultural Impact

D.B. Cooper is, without exaggeration, the most beloved criminal in American history. He is the only hijacker with a folk hero legacy, the subject of songs, movies, TV episodes, restaurants, an annual festival (Cooper Days, held in Ariel, Washington), and an inexhaustible supply of armchair investigation. The reason is simple: he didn’t hurt anyone.

Cooper was, by all accounts, polite to the crew. He tipped the flight attendants. He released the passengers. He didn’t brandish his alleged bomb. He didn’t threaten violence beyond what was necessary to achieve his demands. And then he vanished — stepping into the night like a character in a novel, leaving behind nothing but questions and a clip-on tie. In the popular imagination, he is Robin Hood with a parachute, Butch Cassidy with a briefcase. The fact that he almost certainly died — frozen, broken, lost in the dark forests of the Cascades — doesn’t diminish the romance. If anything, it enhances it: the thief who got away with nothing, the escape artist whose greatest trick was disappearing completely.

The case also changed aviation permanently. In response to the Cooper hijacking, the FAA mandated the installation of “Cooper vanes” — devices that prevent the rear stairs of 727s from being lowered during flight. The Boeing 727’s distinctive ventral airstairs, which had enabled Cooper’s escape, were modified on every remaining aircraft in the fleet. Airport security, which had been virtually nonexistent in 1971 (Cooper walked through Portland airport with a briefcase bomb without passing through any screening), was progressively tightened in the years following the hijacking.

In popular culture, Cooper has appeared everywhere. He is referenced in Prison Break, The Blacklist, Leverage, Without a Paddle, and dozens of other television shows and films. The TV series Loki (2021) built an entire sequence around the Cooper hijacking. The annual Cooper conventions attract investigators, theorists, and enthusiasts from around the world. And the case continues to generate new suspects: barely a year goes by without someone coming forward with a deathbed confession from a relative or a new analysis of the physical evidence.

The FBI suspended active investigation in 2016 — officially, to redirect resources — but the case retains the power to captivate because it offers something that most crime stories don’t: the possibility that the criminal genuinely got away. In a world of surveillance cameras, DNA databases, and digital footprints, D.B. Cooper remains the ghost in the machine — proof that, at least once, someone stepped through the cracks and vanished.

Timeline

• November 24, 1971, 2:50 PM — A man using the name “Dan Cooper” boards Northwest Orient Flight 305 at Portland International Airport.
• 3:07 PM — Flight 305 departs for Seattle.
• Shortly after takeoff — Cooper passes a note to flight attendant Florence Schaffner indicating he has a bomb and demanding ransom.
• 5:24 PM — Flight 305 lands at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Cooper releases the 36 passengers in exchange for $200,000 and four parachutes.
• 7:40 PM — Flight 305 takes off again, heading south toward Reno, Nevada, per Cooper’s instructions.
• 8:13 PM — A pressure change indicates the rear stairway has been deployed. Cooper is believed to have jumped.
• November-December 1971 — Massive ground and air search of the estimated drop zone finds nothing.
• 1971-1980 — The FBI investigates over 1,000 suspects. No ransom bills surface in circulation.
• April 1972 — Richard Floyd McCoy hijacks a United Airlines 727 in a nearly identical scheme. He is caught within 48 hours.
• February 1980 — Eight-year-old Brian Ingram finds $5,800 in deteriorated $20 bills on the banks of the Columbia River. Serial numbers match the Cooper ransom.
• 1980s-2000s — Investigation continues at reduced intensity. New suspects are periodically proposed.
• 2011 — Citizen scientist Tom Kaye identifies rare metallic particles on Cooper’s tie.
• July 2016 — The FBI officially suspends active investigation after 45 years.
• 2017-present — Independent investigators, including Tom Colbert’s team and journalist Eric Ulis, continue pursuing leads.

Sources & Further Reading

• Himmelsbach, Ralph P., and Thomas K. Worcester. NORJAK! The Investigation of D.B. Cooper. West Linn, OR: Norjak Project, 1986.
• Gray, Geoffrey. Skyjack: The Hunt for D.B. Cooper. Crown, 2011.
• Forman, Bruce A. The Legend of D.B. Cooper. 2020.
• FBI. “D.B. Cooper Case.” FBI Records: The Vault.
• Kaye, Tom, et al. “D.B. Cooper: Particle Analysis of the Clip-On Tie.” Citizen Sleuths, 2011.
• Colbert, Tom, and Tom Szollosi. The Last Master Outlaw. 2016.
• Ulis, Eric. DBCooper.com. Independent investigation research.
• Federal Aviation Administration. “Cooper Vane Mandate.” Post-hijacking security modifications documentation.

Related Theories

• Famous Disappearances — Other unsolved cases of people who vanished without a trace
• Faked Death Theories — Theories about people who staged their own deaths and disappeared