The man known as Cooper escaped with $200,000. Photo / AP
The man known as Cooper escaped with $200,000. Photo / AP
Nearly 50 years after skyjacker DB Cooper vanished out the back of a Boeing 727 into freezing Northwest rain a crime historian is conducting a dig on the banks of the Columbia River in Vancouver, Washington, in search of evidence.
Cooper was only wearing a business suit, a parachute, and the pack with his loot of $200,000 in cash.
US media reports that Eric Ulis, a self-described expert on the infamous Cooper case, began a two-day dig on Friday. Ulis and four volunteers are searching for evidence about 9m to 15m away from where a boy found $6000 of Cooper's ransom money in 1980.
Ulis said his theory is that Cooper buried the parachutes, an attache case, and the money at the same time, but dug smaller holes instead of one large one.
The case of Cooper has become infamous, the FBI Seattle field office called the investigation one of the longest and most exhaustive in the agency's history.
The skyjacking has become a podcast, graphic novel, and a 2020 documentary.
On November 24, 1971, the night before Thanksgiving, a man described as being in his mid-40s with dark sunglasses and an olive complexion boarded a flight from Portland, Oregon, to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. He bought his $20 ticket under the name "Dan Cooper," but an early wire-service report misidentified him as "DB Cooper," and the name stuck.
This artist sketch shows the skyjacker known as D.B. Cooper from recollections of the passengers and crew of a Northwest Airlines jet. Photo / AP
Sitting in the rear of the plane, he handed a note to a flight attendant after takeoff. "Miss, I have a bomb and would like you to sit by me," it said.
The man demanded $200,000 in cash plus four parachutes. He received them at Sea-Tac, where he released the 36 passengers and two of the flight attendants. The plane took off again at his direction, heading slowly to Reno, Nevada, at the low height of 10,000 feet. Somewhere, apparently over southwestern Washington, Cooper lowered the aircraft's rear stairs and jumped.
He was never found. But a boy digging on a Columbia River beach in 1980 discovered three bundles of weathered $20 bills — nearly $6000 in all. It was Cooper's cash, according to the serial numbers.
Over the years, the FBI and amateur sleuths have examined innumerable theories about Cooper's identity and fate, from accounts of unexplained wealth to purported discoveries of his parachute to potential matches of the agency's composite sketch of the suspect.
In July 2016, the FBI announced it was no longer investigating the case.
