It was a gray, rainy afternoon on November 24, 1971—the day before Thanksgiving. At Portland International Airport, most travelers were thinking about turkey dinners and family reunions.
But one quiet, sharply dressed man in a black suit, dark tie, and sunglasses had something very different in mind.
He walked calmly up to the counter for Northwest Orient Flight 305, a short, 30-minute hop from Portland to Seattle. He paid cash for his one-way ticket—twenty dollars—and gave his name as Dan Cooper.
No one could have guessed that within hours, this polite stranger would hijack a plane, extort $200,000 in ransom, and then leap into a stormy night—vanishing forever.
What followed would become one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in American history.
The Passenger in Seat 18E
Flight 305 boarded at 2:50 p.m. It was a Boeing 727, carrying 36 passengers and 6 crew members.
Witnesses later said the man in seat 18E didn’t stand out much—calm, polite, maybe in his mid-forties. He ordered a bourbon and soda, lit a cigarette, and quietly watched the clouds outside.
About ten minutes after take-off, he motioned to flight attendant Florence Schaffner. When she leaned in, he handed her a note.
She assumed it was his phone number—passengers sometimes flirted with flight attendants back then—so she slipped it into her pocket without reading it.
The man leaned closer.
“Miss,” he said calmly, “you’d better look at that note. I have a bomb.”
The Bomb
The note was short and precise:
“I have a bomb in my briefcase. I want you to sit next to me.”
Heart pounding, Florence sat down. The man cracked open his black briefcase just enough to show her eight red cylinders, wires, and a large battery.
He wasn’t bluffing.
He spoke softly, never raising his voice. “I want $200,000 in cash, four parachutes, and a fuel truck waiting in Seattle to refuel the plane for another trip. No funny business.”
Florence relayed the message to the cockpit. The pilot, William Scott, immediately radioed air traffic control, who then called the FBI.
By this point, the man had taken full control of Flight 305—but he didn’t act like a typical hijacker.
He was calm. Polite. Even friendly.
He ordered another drink—paid for it—and offered to buy one for the flight attendants.
When Florence asked for his name, he said, “Call me Dan Cooper.”
The Flight to Seattle
As Flight 305 circled the Seattle area for two hours, the FBI scrambled to gather the ransom and the parachutes. The money—$200,000 in unmarked $20 bills—was quickly pulled from a Seattle bank, each bill carefully photographed.
Onboard, Cooper seemed almost relaxed. He chatted with the crew, guessed aloud about the plane’s altitude, and even commented on the weather.
When one flight attendant asked if he had a grudge against Northwest Airlines, he smiled and said, “I don’t have a grudge against your airline, miss. I just have a grudge.”
Outside, the rain fell harder.
At 5:46 p.m., the tower radioed the cockpit: the ransom and parachutes were ready. Cooper gave a single order:
“Land the plane.”
The Exchange
When Flight 305 touched down in Seattle, every window shade was pulled down to keep snipers from getting a clear shot.
The hijacker’s instructions were precise: the money and parachutes were to be brought to the plane via truck, the crew was to stay onboard, and none of the passengers were to be harmed.
The exchange went smoothly.
Once the cash and parachutes were on board, Cooper released all 36 passengers, along with flight attendant Florence.
That left only five people: the pilot, co-pilot, flight engineer, and two remaining attendants.
He told them his plan.
They would take off again, heading south toward Mexico City—but at 10,000 feet, with the landing gear down and the cabin depressurized.
The pilot protested that it was dangerous. Cooper calmly replied, “Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing.”
Into the Storm
At 7:40 p.m., Flight 305 took off again.
Rain lashed the fuselage. Wind howled across the wings. Cooper ordered the crew to remain in the cockpit and keep the door closed.
He went to the back of the plane, carrying the money and one of the parachutes.
A few minutes later, a light on the instrument panel blinked—the aft staircase had been opened mid-flight.
At 8:13 p.m., the plane suddenly pitched upward—then stabilized.
Something… or someone… had left the aircraft.
By the time the 727 landed in Reno, Nevada, Cooper was gone. The aft stairs hung open, flapping in the cold wind.
No one had seen him jump.
And despite a massive search by hundreds of law-enforcement officers, no trace of him was ever found.
The Search
The next morning, the FBI launched Operation NORJAK—short for Northwest Hijacking.
They mapped the flight path using radar and wind calculations, narrowing the possible jump zone to a dense forested area near Ariel, Washington, along the Lewis River.
Hundreds of soldiers, police, and volunteers combed the woods for weeks. They found broken trees, animal tracks, and discarded camping gear—but no parachute, no body, and no briefcase.
It was as if D.B. Cooper had vanished into thin air.
And then there was the name.
When reporters first broke the story, one mistakenly referred to him as “D.B. Cooper” instead of “Dan Cooper.” The name stuck.
Within days, it became legend.
Theories Take Flight
In the early days, investigators considered a terrifying possibility: Cooper didn’t survive the jump.
It was pitch black, freezing cold, and raining hard. He jumped from 10,000 feet into rough terrain wearing a thin suit and loafers. The odds of survival were slim.
But some details didn’t add up.
He’d chosen the 727 for a reason: it was one of the few jets whose rear stairs could be lowered mid-flight. That trick wasn’t public knowledge—it was used only by paratroopers and test pilots.
He also requested four parachutes, suggesting he wanted to make police think he might take a hostage. That forced them to give him working equipment instead of dummy chutes.
Whoever he was, this man knew planes, parachutes, and tactics.
He wasn’t a reckless amateur. He was a professional.
The Suspects
Over the decades, the FBI investigated over 1,000 suspects, but a few names stand out.
One was Richard Floyd McCoy, a Vietnam veteran and experienced skydiver who hijacked another 727 in 1972 using nearly the same method. He parachuted out, survived, and was later caught.
But McCoy didn’t match Cooper’s description, and his handwriting didn’t match the note.
Another was Duane Weber, a former criminal who confessed on his deathbed, “I’m Dan Cooper.” His widow later claimed he’d had nightmares about “leaving fingerprints on a plane.” But no hard evidence linked him to the case.
A third was Robert Rackstraw, an ex-Army pilot with a suspicious background. He was investigated heavily but always denied involvement. The FBI eventually ruled him out.
Each suspect had some pieces that fit—but none that made the puzzle whole.
The Money Resurfaces
For nine years, the case went cold.
Then, in 1980, a family was camping along the Columbia River near Vancouver, Washington. An 8-year-old boy named Brian Ingram was digging in the sand when he uncovered something strange: three bundles of decayed $20 bills, still bound with rubber bands.
When the FBI examined them, the serial numbers matched the ransom money given to D.B. Cooper.
In total, $5,800 was found—partially buried, deteriorating, but unmistakably real.
The find reignited the mystery.
Had Cooper buried it before escaping? Had it washed downstream from his landing spot? Or had someone else stumbled upon it and hidden it there?
No one knew.
The rest of the $200,000 was never found.
The Man Behind the Myth
What made the D.B. Cooper story so captivating wasn’t just the crime—it was the style.
He didn’t harm anyone. He was polite, even courteous. One flight attendant recalled that he seemed almost fatherly—concerned about her comfort, offering her the extra ransom parachute “just in case.”
When he ordered food for the crew, he told them, “You’d better eat something. We’ll be on the ground soon.”
He was cool, calm, and meticulous—a mystery man straight out of a spy movie.
And then, with the world watching, he stepped off the back of a jet into the night and was never seen again.
The image of that moment—the wind, the rain, the flickering red lights of the plane disappearing into clouds—became an American legend.
The Investigation Ends—But the Legend Grows
In 2016, after 45 years, the FBI officially closed the case, stating they had exhausted every lead.
But in truth, D.B. Cooper never really disappeared from the public imagination.
Books, documentaries, and movies kept the story alive. His face—dark suit, black tie, sunglasses—became a symbol of rebellion and mystery.
Every year, people gather near Ariel, Washington, for the “D.B. Cooper Days” festival, toasting the man who pulled off the impossible.
Some believe he died that night. Others are sure he lived, quietly blending back into society—maybe even sitting in a bar somewhere, chuckling over the legend he created.
Could He Have Survived?
To survive the jump, Cooper would have had to navigate dense forest, freezing temperatures, and rough terrain with no light.
But experts point out that he seemed prepared.
He knew the flight path, knew which direction to jump, and requested a specific type of parachute. He even demanded that the rear stairs remain down during take-off—a small detail that made his escape easier.
Some believe he might have landed near the Lewis River, buried the money, and simply walked away.
If he did, he vanished perfectly—no fingerprints, no witnesses, no trail.
It was the perfect disappearance.
The Legacy of the Skyjacker
In the half-century since that stormy Thanksgiving Eve, D.B. Cooper has become something more than a criminal.
He’s a legend—a modern-day outlaw who outsmarted the system without firing a shot.
His story is part mystery, part myth, and part puzzle that no one can solve.
When the FBI closed the case, they admitted they had “no definitive conclusions” about his fate. The money found on the riverbank only deepened the mystery—it was a breadcrumb without a trail.
To this day, the identity of D.B. Cooper remains unknown.
Final Thoughts
On that rainy night in 1971, a man in a suit walked calmly onto a plane, smiled politely, and changed history.
He didn’t rant, didn’t threaten anyone unnecessarily. He simply handed over a note, took his money, and disappeared into the clouds.
Half a century later, we still ask the same questions:
Who was he?
Where did he go?
And how did he vanish so completely that not even the FBI, with all its resources, could find a single trace?
Maybe the truth lies at the bottom of the Columbia River. Maybe it’s buried in some forgotten forest. Or maybe… it walks among us still.
All we know is that somewhere out there, beneath that stormy sky, the legend of D.B. Cooper took flight—and it never landed.
