Is he still alive? The mystery of DB Cooper – the hijacker who disappeared | US crime

On the night of 24 November 1971, Florence Schaffner, a flight attendant on a Northwest Orient flight heading to Seattle, Washington, from Portland, Oregon, was handed a be aware by a male passenger seated behind the airplane. Schaffner assumed the be aware was a telephone quantity – this wasn’t the primary time a passenger had hit on her – so she stowed it in her purse with out studying it. The person leaned in the direction of her and whispered: “Miss, you’d higher look at that be aware. I’ve a bomb.”Schaffner learn it: “Miss – I have a bomb in my briefcase and wish you to sit down by me.”She complied. The person was sporting a go well with and had a darkish complexion. His eyes have been hidden by sun shades. Schaffner watched as he opened his suitcase, revealing 4 cylindrical sticks related to a wire and a battery – it definitely appeared like a bomb. He then advised Schaffner his calls for: the passengers have been to stay seated whereas the airplane refuelled in Seattle; when he was handed $200,000 (about $1.6m as we speak) and 4 parachutes, they’d be launched.When the passengers alighted in Seattle, that they had no concept that they had simply flown on a hijacked airplane. The bottom crew obeyed the hijacker’s needs and refuelled the airplane, whereas the authorities gave the money and parachutes to the aircrew. The person then ordered the pilots to take off, flying low and sluggish with the flaps down in the direction of Mexico.In some unspecified time in the future over Washington, the crew felt their ears pop when the strain within the cabin dropped – somebody had lowered the air stair on the rear of the airplane. The person had leapt into the night time and vanished, by no means to be discovered. The one hint he left behind was a clip-on tie, a tie clip and the identify written on his ticket, Dan Cooper, which was misprinted in contemporaneous information studies as DB Cooper. The identify caught – and a legend was born.Nobody is aware of who Cooper was (or is), not three-letter spooks or a military of novice sleuths. The case is on ice, however the story stays charming. Leaving apart the audacity of the stunt, a number of questions persist: was Cooper by no means discovered as a result of he didn’t survive the bounce? The authorities recorded the serial numbers of the payments handed to Cooper, however they by no means confirmed up, apart from about $5,800, found in a state of disintegration on the banks of the Columbia River close to Vancouver, Washington, in February 1980. Who was Cooper? A former paratrooper or a chancer? The place was he from?The solutions to those questions appear maddeningly out of attain; I perceive how greyhounds really feel about mechanical rabbits.Fly too near this thriller and it sucks you into its orbit. Geoffrey Grey, who wrote the 2011 guide Skyjack: The Hunt for DB Cooper, refers to this because the “Cooper curse”. The podcaster Darren Schaefer has the curse, too. He acquired it after studying Skyjack and felt compelled to begin a podcast devoted to the thriller with Russell Colbert in 2018. Schaefer was initially going to name it The DB Cooper Podcast, however finally landed on The Cooper Vortex, after studying how fellow Cooper anoraks describe the case.Schaefer explains that he has promised a number of instances over time to desert Cooper, however, like Michael Corleone in The Godfather, simply when he thinks he’s out, he will get pulled again in. “The DB Cooper story is like the most effective guide I’ve ever learn in my complete life, however I’m lacking the primary and final chapters of the guide. I solely have the center. There isn’t any DB Cooper story earlier than the hijacking and there actually is none after. He solely exists for about 5 hours.”There are various theories about Cooper’s identification. The identify itself is intriguing: Dan Cooper is the protagonist in a long-running Franco-Belgian comedian guide collection, Les Aventures de Dan Cooper. The comics star a heroic take a look at pilot within the Canadian air pressure – assume Tintin meets Buck Rogers. A number of the plots share similarities with the hijacking, together with parachuting from a airplane and delivering a ransom in a knapsack. Coincidences – or one thing extra? “Should you robbed a practice after which escaped on a skateboard and your ticket was beneath the identify Tony Hawk, is {that a} coincidence?” asks Schaefer.‘He deserved to get caught – he acquired folks killed’ … (clockwise from high left) the hijacked airplane; a cranium discovered throughout a search in Oregon in 1975; a helicopter search in Washington in 1976; and a dig on the Columbia River in 1980. Composite: Guardian Design; AP/Bettmann ArchiveWas the hijacker impressed by the comics? The collection was not well-known exterior the Francophone world; maybe he was Canadian. In that case, that would chop the search to fewer than 2.9 million folks, roughly the variety of French Canadian males in 1971.What in regards to the cash? At all times comply with the cash, they are saying. Solely the cash leads nowhere. In additional than 50 years, not a single invoice from the ransom has appeared in circulation, regardless of the notes’ serial numbers being shared with banks throughout the US. (The cash present in 1980 introduced investigators no nearer to the reality.)The only clarification for what turned of Cooper is that he didn’t land safely; his physique and loot have been misplaced to the weather and the passage of time. This was the prevailing knowledge among the many authentic FBI investigators. Cooper was sporting a go well with and gown sneakers and jumped into thick clouds and heavy rain on a freezing night time above the Washington wilderness – not the most effective apparel for parachuting or the hike he would have needed to make upon touchdown.Cooper instructed the pilots to fly in the direction of Mexico, however he had no manner of understanding the precise flight path they have been taking, as a result of dense cloud cowl. The panorama of the Pacific Northwest is wildly various: Cooper might have plummeted right into a crag on a mountain, plunged right into a lake or crashed right into a ravine simply as simply as alighted softly on flat agricultural land.However Marty Andrade will not be satisfied Cooper is lifeless. The Minnesota writer has been following the Cooper thriller for greater than a decade. In his guide in regards to the case, he argues that the statistics on parachuting survival charges favour Cooper. Importantly, he doesn’t consider Cooper jumped over wilderness.“He in all probability jumped a lot nearer to a city known as Battle Floor, Washington,” Andrade says. “Now, there are numerous timber and stuff, however it’s properly‑developed agricultural land, pretty flat in contrast with the Cascades [the mountain range that runs from southern British Columbia in Canada to northern California in the US]. And when you have a look at the timing of the place the plane was, he could have landed inside a mile or two of this city.”Karen Humes, a professor on the College of Idaho’s division of earth and spatial sciences, agrees. With the assistance of her college students, Humes created an interactive map of Cooper’s possible flight path and decided that he almost definitely parachuted over farmland. “It’s a whole fable that it was a wilderness,” she says. “We all know it properly sufficient to be assured that he jumped someplace between Battle Floor, which is a really small city simply north of Vancouver, Washington, and simply barely south of the Columbia River. So, we’re speaking the suburbs of Vancouver and the terrain is fairly flat.”Whether or not or not he survived the bounce might be moot at this level. Cooper was regarded as about 40. If his behaviour on the flight offers a window into his life-style, then he was a heavy smoker and vulnerable to taking absurd dangers. As such, he’s unlikely nonetheless to be alive.It’s a whole fable that it was a wilderness the place he jumped … we’re speaking the suburbs of Vancouver“I settle for the truth that we in all probability won’t ever know; that’s advantageous with me,” says Andrade. The enjoyment he takes from this thriller is the group round it. “It’s good to have the ability to sit down after which simply randomly begin speaking about why Cooper selected a felt-tip pen for his ransom be aware,” he says.Andrade remembers the rabbit gap he went down when he discovered that forensic analysts had discovered traces of metallic particles on Cooper’s discarded tie. Andrade mentioned the particles are present in make-up, which he found whereas poring over piles of analysis papers. “I’m studying all these papers and I’m like: ‘What am I doing?’”Andrade, Humes and Schaefer have made many buddies on this area, however issues can get intense on-line, with folks wrapping up their shallowness in pet theories. Additionally, the group is a little bit of a boys’ membership. “I’m virtually distinctive,” says Pat Boland over the telephone from a cruise liner heading to the Portuguese coast. Together with Humes, Boland is without doubt one of the few ladies investigating DB Cooper. At 64, she is sufficiently old to recollect the hijacking being reported, however she says she acquired drawn into the vortex by the rumours swirling across the denouement of the TV collection Mad Males. Because the finale approached in 2015, it was posited that the collection’ protagonist, Don Draper, would change into Cooper. “Which, after all, didn’t occur. It was probably a publicity stunt, however I began desirous about it once more. And I simply fell in headfirst.”Boland has put collectively teams of researchers and scientists to attempt to persuade the FBI to allow them to take a look at Cooper’s parachute for DNA. Cooper tore up one of many parachutes he was given to create a makeshift bag for the ransom and left components of it behind. “This may be at no expense to the taxpayer, as now we have volunteers who’re fairly used to dealing with this kind of proof. Again in 1971, that sort of testing didn’t even exist,” she says. The FBI has refused, however Boland stays hopeful which will change.The Cooper case matches neatly into the true-crime style, which is hottest amongst ladies, so why is Boland an outlier? “I believe ladies are likely to wish to clarify, as an example, the Zodiac killer or some horrible case, as a result of they put themselves within the place of the victims,” she says. Males, however, determine with Cooper as a result of his heist might have been written by Ian Fleming. “I believe numerous males would like to get an aeroplane and bounce out with manner over 1,000,000 and disappear to Mexico with a margarita of their hand.”The primary sip from my drink makes the hairs on my neck rise up; a shiver snakes down my backbone. It’s a bourbon and soda – the identical cocktail Cooper sipped mid-flight – however right here it’s known as a Skyjack. I’m in DB Cooper’s, a Manhattan dive bar devoted to the hijacking.The bar was opened six months in the past by the Irishman Ciaran Willis and two of his buddies. Not desirous to be simply one other banal Irish pub – Celtic surnames, inexperienced snakes and shamrocks – they got here up with a reputation that may stand out. In addition to serving themed cocktails – the Flight 305 mixes pear vodka with pear nectar, blackberry and lemon juice – the pub is embellished with Cooper-inspired images, drawings, newspaper clippings and T-shirts. “We’re working low on stuff on the minute,” Willis says as he offers me a tour. “These have been those we did for St Patrick’s Day,” he continues, exhibiting me a stack of inexperienced T-shirts. He leads me to the bar’s pièce de résistance: an enormous framed poster illustrating the story of the hijacking. A Cooper conference takes place yearly in Portland, Oregon; Willis is in contact with the organisers and says he hopes to host an occasion.“Do you see him as a hero?” I ask Willis as he pours me one other Skyjack. “I don’t actually know easy methods to reply that,” Willis says. “He didn’t damage anybody, I suppose. However I wouldn’t advocate for any sort of air piracy. I suppose it took balls to do what he did, however I wouldn’t be advocating for any copycats.”Andrade is extra emphatic: “He was undoubtedly a criminal,” he says. “I don’t make him a Robin Hood character … He undoubtedly deserved to get caught. He acquired folks killed.” Andrade is referring to the copycats who hijacked planes within the aftermath, a few of whom died of their makes an attempt. “And he destroyed lives, not deliberately, however that was the top outcome. There have been penalties to this that have been critical and significant. It’s not a victimless crime.”Boland agrees: “All the ladies I’ve spoken to about it, additionally they assume he’s a prison. As a result of I believe they have a tendency to actually sympathise with the air stewardesses.” Cooper drew two flight attendants into his orbit on Flight 305. After Schaffner took his be aware and directions to the cockpit, Tina Mucklow sat with Cooper for the rest of the flight and acted as a liaison between him and the remainder of the crew. It was Mucklow who obtained the ransom; she was the one flight attendant on board when the flight left for Mexico.Mucklow in all probability doesn’t want anybody’s sympathy. “I simply moved on. Perhaps that’s a part of being younger and resilient, but it surely was additionally a part of what we practice for. That was a part of what our job was,” she advised Rolling Stone in 2021. The one bother she has had is batting away the hordes of novice Columbos who pursue her for interviews.Schaefer has a special view. “I wish to know the reply so badly I’d do something if someone got here to me and mentioned: ‘Hey, I’ve all of the secrets and techniques and I’ll inform you, however you possibly can by no means inform anybody else.’ I’d 1,000,000% say: ‘Sure, completely, inform me what occurred, so I can know.’”We stay in an period of data overload. Info circulate like water and are simply as tough to regulate. It’s encouraging that there are nonetheless some mysteries left in a world the place all of the maps are charted. If Schaefer discovered Cooper, there could be no want for his podcast, no want for Andrade to debate the finer particulars of felt-tip pens together with his buddies, no extra conventions to attend, no extra novelty bars. Not understanding appears the entire level of this thriller. Who’s DB Cooper? Whomever you need him to be. 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