Fifty years ago today, on November 24, 1971, Dan "D. B." Cooper took the connecting flight.

D. B. Cooper


A 1972 FBI composite drawing of Cooper

Disappeared: November 24, 1971 (50 years ago)
Status: Unknown
Other names: Dan Cooper
Known for: Hijacking a Boeing 727 and parachuting from the plane mid-flight before disappearing

Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305

N467US, the aircraft involved in the hijacking

Hijacking
Date: November 24, 1971
Summary: Hijacking
Site: Between Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington

Aircraft
Aircraft type: Boeing 727-51
Operator: Northwest Orient Airlines
Registration: N467US
Flight origin: Portland International Airport
Destination: Seattle-Tacoma International Airport

D. B. Cooper is a media epithet used to refer to an unidentified man who hijacked a Boeing 727 aircraft in United States airspace between Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington, on the afternoon of November 24, 1971. He extorted $200,000 in ransom (equivalent to $1,278,000 in 2020) and parachuted to an uncertain fate over southwestern Washington. The man purchased his airline ticket using the alias Dan Cooper but, because of a news miscommunication, became known in popular lore as D. B. Cooper.

The FBI maintained an active investigation for 45 years after the hijacking. Despite a case file that grew to over 60 volumes over that period, no definitive conclusions were reached regarding Cooper's true identity or fate. The crime remains the only unsolved air piracy in commercial aviation history.

Numerous theories of widely varying plausibility have been proposed over the years by investigators, reporters, and amateur enthusiasts. $5,880 of the ransom was found along the banks of the Columbia River in 1980, which triggered renewed interest but ultimately only deepened the mystery. The great majority of the ransom remains unrecovered.

The FBI officially suspended active investigation of the case in July 2016, but the agency continues to request that any physical evidence that might emerge related to the parachutes or the ransom money be submitted for analysis.

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