When a family managed to find an old parachute in the backyard of their Amboy, Washington home earlier this year (announced by the FBI on March 24), it managed to continue a recent re-interest in the 1971 D.B. Cooper airline hijack case. Why so much interest and recent clues are suddenly coming back into the picture in the last six months is a bit interesting–though it all seems to just deepen the case and make it all the more circuitous in ever being solved. Even if the parachute found in SW Washington turns out to be the Navy Backpack 6 that Cooper jumped with, it still won’t pin down if Cooper is alive somewhere or died during the jump. But while I’m sure the FBI gets satisfaction in solving most cases–I get the impression the iconic status of the Cooper case might just allow some agents to keep prolonging the mystery as a piece of Americana…and as an emblematic warning about airport security.
For those much younger who aren’t familiar with the D.B. Cooper case–you’re in for one of the greatest American unsolved mysteries of the 20th century. On the day before Thanksgiving of 1971, a man boarded a flight at Portland (Oregon) International Airport under the name “Dan Cooper” (the “D.B.” coming from a later suspect who was released). Looking quite a bit like the future Men in Black with dark suit and sunglasses–Cooper handed the stewardess on board a note saying he had a bomb in a briefcase that he would detonate if he didn’t get $200,000 (all in unmarked $20 bills) and four parachutes. Strangely, he asked for two main back parachutes and then two emergency chutes worn around the chest. This seems to suggest that he had someone on board who would jump with him.
Well, that famous sketch of Cooper also seems to suggest he was a mild-mannered hijacker. All of the recollections by those who talked to him, though, seem to contradict one another in how he presented himself. The stewardess (who talked to him more than anybody) remembered him to be friendly and conscientious to the well-being of the passengers and crew. The FBI always contradicts this by saying he was a mean S.O.B.–possibly to avoid mythologizing the man that’s already happened anyway. When Cooper ordered the plane to land at Seattle-Tacoma Airport to get the money and the parachutes, he methodically made sure the passengers were released without harm. It seems likely now that the bomb he threatened to detonate from his briefcase was a fake. In the case of an Al Qaeda terrorist today–it obviously wouldn’t be.
We can only wish a hijacking today would be this benign in making sure the passengers weren’t hurt before committing the crime. Cooper did get belligerent, though, when refueling that had to be done on the plane took a little too long. Strange that he and a only a few crew members were the only ones on board at that point–yet still threatened to blow up the plane…which would have only killed himself. Not a brilliant move that probably proved right there the bomb was a fake, but the crew still acquiesced to his demands. The money and parachutes had already been delivered into his hands.
When the plane took off (with original intention to fly to Mexico City), he asked that it be flown at a relatively low altitude–obviously knowing that if he jumped at 25,000 or higher, he’d never make it to ground alive. However, a lot of flight experts think that he didn’t really understand that you can technically be killed jumping at even 10,000 feet. That didn’t stop him, however, from doing just that after lowering the aft stairs on the plane and taking a leap out–never to be seen again. A lot of people thought perhaps that he intended to take the crew hostage with him (hence the four parachutes)–but it makes me ponder whether there was someone else on the plane earlier who was an accomplice–yet managed to get away when he released all the passengers in Seattle.
If Cooper did manage to survive his jump–it would have been one amazing feat of survival considering the driving rain and altitude at the point of his jump somewhere over the Oregon-Washington border.
The continuing myth of Cooper surviving the jump…
At a “Ripley’s Believe it or Not!” wax museum in Newport, Oregon (on the Oregon Coast–and a very popular attraction)–they have a little diorama inside showing a wax figure of D.B. Cooper hanging by a tree (still wearing his sunglasses) with his parachute somewhere in the SW Washington wilderness. We’re supposed to assume he’s alive–because they don’t show him slumped over as if dead. In a clever little illusionary process, though, they use a mirror effect to make it look as if he’s up and disappeared off the tree when you turn a corner. This fools more tourists when they see this little mirror illusion, but a lot of fun…especially when you know how the illusion is done and others don’t. It also helps reinforce the mythologizing of Cooper and how much of a pop culture figure he’s become even to newer generations.
A lot of people like to think that Cooper managed to land and somehow escape into society with that money. The more logical scenario is that he was too dumb to realize that jumping at 10,000 feet would likely tear him apart–though not necessarily destroying all the money. That case in point comes from 1980 when a kid found about $5,000 dollars worth of that $200,000 Cooper took with him spread along the Columbia River in Vancouver, Washington. A couple of years earlier, a placard giving directions for the aft of the plane was found in the same general location. All of that gave indication that had D.B. Cooper landed–it was somewhere in SW Washington.
On the other hand, some recent evidence suggests that maybe “Dan Cooper” did survive, based on a recent deathbed confession and the idea that nobody would attempt a jump like that unless they had some paratrooper experience. Other FBI agents say that a true paratrooper would have inspected his parachutes (something Cooper apparently didn’t do) before jumping. Also, they wouldn’t jump in a blind rainstorm above the clouds. Who’s to say, though, that when you’re in an emotionally crazed state to pull off a crime, you wouldn’t do what you’d ordinarily do. The stewardess who talked with Cooper for hours on the plane said he appeared to have some knowledge of skydiving and was familiar with the Seattle area.
Myriad deathbed confessions–or the result of mental fantasies when near death?
One of the strangest twists in the Cooper case has been in a small group of men who’ve died in the last five years all claiming right before kicking the bucket that they were Dan Cooper. Most of them have been ruled out–except for one who recently died and who’s still being investigated by the FBI…but now for over a year with no name released. On the popular radio show, Coast to Coast–they managed to obtain a picture of this suspect who died in early 2007 and claimed to be Cooper to his son and other family: coasttocoastam.com/shows/2008/01/05.html#db After you see his picture and his background, it gives you that Eureka feeling that this just might be the guy. And here he was a respected Army Green Beret paratrooper who was stationed in Fort Lewis, Washington. It all seems to add up.
This unidentified man may also have connections to Richard McCoy, Jr. who did a copycat hijack of a plane in Colorado just four months after the Cooper hijack in 1972. McCoy never admitted to being Cooper (despite the FBI thinking he was one and the same)–but ended up in prison…then was later killed after escaping.
The only mystery would be–why did this unknown family man do it? Perhaps he did manage to keep some of the money, despite some of it obviously flying out of the briefcase he had with him. Because he had paratrooper experience, he may have been used to jumping in harsh conditions, too, and managed to withstand it before landing. We’ll probably know more about this unknown person in the time beyond this article.
Then again, maybe we won’t for one particular reason…
The pleasure of a good mystery…
Don’t take this the wrong way: I know the FBI works hard in solving as many cases as they can. With the Cooper case, though, they’d even admit that it’s become a part of American pop culture that makes for a thrilling mystery. After 37 years as of this article, having it suddenly solved would take away that thrill of a lot of people…including the FBI. It’s been over a year now, also, since that unknown man mentioned (and shown) above died and an FBI investigation was put forth. Why would it take this long to match available DNA and fingerprints left behind by Cooper to the unknown man who died?
As strange as it sounds, having the Cooper mystery go on makes for one stand-alone crime that may be deliberately left unsolved just to keep the pop culture aspect of it alive for decades to come. In the meantime, it seems likely now that the case comes down to two scenarios: Cooper died and his remains will never be found, or the above unknown man was definitely Cooper and the case will soon be closed. All of the other deathbed confessions (perhaps the result of pharmaceuticals causing hallucinations and other mind games) and suspects (former suspect, John List, who just died this last week, obviously wasn’t Cooper) all become moot.
With so many deathbed confessions, however, it makes you wonder if this was some kind of connected underground crime ring with the unknown man above carrying out the actual operation. One man pulling this all off alone without at least some back-ups in place seems more logical if maybe not necessary if the man was brilliant enough.
There, with that in mind, it may have just prolonged the mystery for the FBI a little bit longer…
