D.B. Cooper Jumped Out of a Plane and Vanished

The Man in 18C

On November 24, 1971, a man who appeared to be in his mid-forties approached the Northwest Orient ticket counter at Portland International Airport. He wore a dark suit, a white shirt, a narrow black tie held in place by a mother-of-pearl clip. He carried a black attache case. He purchased a one-way ticket to Seattle for $20, giving the name Dan Cooper.

He boarded Flight 305 — a Boeing 727-100 with 36 passengers and a crew of six. He sat in seat 18C, the last row on the right side. He ordered a bourbon and soda. He smoked a Raleigh filter-tipped cigarette. He was calm, polite, and utterly unremarkable.

Then he passed a note to flight attendant Florence Schaffner.

The note said he had a bomb in his briefcase and wanted $200,000 in "negotiable American currency," four parachutes, and a fuel truck standing by in Seattle. Schaffner walked to the cockpit. Cooper opened the briefcase for another flight attendant, Tina Mucklow, showing her a glimpse of red cylinders, a battery, and wires.

The Negotiation

The plane circled Puget Sound for two hours while the FBI scrambled on the ground. Cooper was described by every crew member as calm, courteous, and seemingly experienced. He knew the 727's rear staircase could be lowered in flight — a detail most passengers would never know.

The FBI assembled $200,000 in twenty-dollar bills — 10,000 notes total. Crucially, they photographed every single bill, recording the serial numbers on microfilm. If Cooper ever spent the money, they'd know.

Four parachutes were delivered — two main chutes and two reserves. One of the reserves was a training dummy with a sewn-shut canopy, included by mistake. Cooper may or may not have noticed.

The Jump

At 5:24 PM, Flight 305 landed in Seattle. Cooper released all 36 passengers and two of the flight attendants. The fuel truck topped off the tanks. The money and parachutes were delivered.

Cooper ordered the remaining crew to fly to Mexico City at minimum airspeed — under 200 knots — below 10,000 feet, with the flaps at 15 degrees, the landing gear down, and the aft staircase lowered. The pilots told him the plane couldn't reach Mexico City under those conditions. He agreed to a refuelling stop in Reno.

At 7:40 PM, the plane took off. At approximately 8:13 PM, the cockpit crew noticed a sudden change in air pressure and an oscillation in the flight path — the aft staircase had been lowered. Somewhere over the Lewis River in southwest Washington, Cooper jumped.

The temperature outside was -7C. The wind chill was brutal. He was wearing a business suit and loafers. He jumped into pitch darkness, freezing rain, and 200 mph winds with a canvas parachute strapped to his back.

The Search

The FBI launched its most extensive investigation since the Kennedy assassination. They called it NORJAK — Northwest Hijacking. Over 800 suspects were investigated. Not one was ever charged.

Then, in 1980, a boy named Brian Ingram was digging a campfire pit on the banks of the Columbia River, near Vancouver, Washington — roughly 20 miles southwest of Cooper's estimated drop zone. He found three bundles of disintegrating $20 bills, totalling $5,800. The serial numbers matched Cooper's ransom money.

How the money got there remains a mystery. The bills were several miles from the projected flight path. They were partially dissolved, suggesting they'd been in the water for years. But no other bills from the ransom have ever surfaced — not in banks, not in stores, not in any transaction anywhere in the world.