The_Kitchen_Guy
Silver Member
- 12,458
Long before many of you were born, a man who was actually a common criminal, became kind of a folk hero for pulling an uncommon crime.
In 1971, A Northwest Orient Airlines flight from Portland to Seattle was hijacked by a man who called himself Dan Cooper. Police were checking out someone listed in the phone book as D.B. Cooper (just in case he was dumb enough to use his real name) and the press got ahold of the name. The result was that the hijacker became forever became known as D.B. Cooper.
Cooper claimed to have a bomb with him on board. The plane landed in Seattle, and he promised to release the passengers for $200,000.00 and a flight to Mexico. He was given the money, he released the passengers, and the plane took off for Mexico.
Authorities figured they had him nailed and that he would be arrested as soon as the plane touched down in Mexico. He fooled them, though, because somewhere near the Washington/Oregon border, he exited the plane through a rear stairway and parachuted into the night.
No one has heard anything of him since. A bag, known to belong to Cooper, washed up on the shore of the Columbia River near Vancouver. It contained almost $6,000.00 and prompted the theory that Cooper had died in the fall, or from exposure afterwards.
An awful movie (starring Robert Duvall and Treat Williams) was made about the caper and legends became the norm. Like all high profile cases, it soon quieted down and was forgotten. The final accepted theory was that Cooper perished during the fall.
Until this week.
Some children dug up a parachute in Oregon this week - and authorities are scrambling to find out if it is, in fact, the parachute that D.B. Cooper used to exit the plane. It's the best lead authorities have had in over 30 years.
Authorities, who never found a trace of him, are sticking to their story that he never could have survived the fall or, if he did survive the landing, that he could have survived in the wild.
But the find is reawakening discussion about a rare hijacking that might have actually worked.
In 1971, A Northwest Orient Airlines flight from Portland to Seattle was hijacked by a man who called himself Dan Cooper. Police were checking out someone listed in the phone book as D.B. Cooper (just in case he was dumb enough to use his real name) and the press got ahold of the name. The result was that the hijacker became forever became known as D.B. Cooper.
Cooper claimed to have a bomb with him on board. The plane landed in Seattle, and he promised to release the passengers for $200,000.00 and a flight to Mexico. He was given the money, he released the passengers, and the plane took off for Mexico.
Authorities figured they had him nailed and that he would be arrested as soon as the plane touched down in Mexico. He fooled them, though, because somewhere near the Washington/Oregon border, he exited the plane through a rear stairway and parachuted into the night.
No one has heard anything of him since. A bag, known to belong to Cooper, washed up on the shore of the Columbia River near Vancouver. It contained almost $6,000.00 and prompted the theory that Cooper had died in the fall, or from exposure afterwards.
An awful movie (starring Robert Duvall and Treat Williams) was made about the caper and legends became the norm. Like all high profile cases, it soon quieted down and was forgotten. The final accepted theory was that Cooper perished during the fall.
Until this week.
Some children dug up a parachute in Oregon this week - and authorities are scrambling to find out if it is, in fact, the parachute that D.B. Cooper used to exit the plane. It's the best lead authorities have had in over 30 years.
Authorities, who never found a trace of him, are sticking to their story that he never could have survived the fall or, if he did survive the landing, that he could have survived in the wild.
But the find is reawakening discussion about a rare hijacking that might have actually worked.
