D B Cooper day

On the day before Thanksgiving in 1971, an unknown individual hijacked a Northwest Orient B727 aircraft along with $200K. He has never been identified or located. The press assigned him the moniker "D B Cooper" but his real name remains a mystery.

Lots of rumors surround this act, but it is one of few felony hijacking cases which has never been solved. There is an interesting read on Wikipedia for anyone interested.

I used to think it was funny to use DB Cooper at restaurants. I only remember one guy getting it after years of trying. He said "you are younger than I imagined". I told him money can do wonders.

I enjoyed Stephan Root's character, Jimmy James, on NewsRadio intimating he was D. B. Cooper.

One of my favorite stories, ever. I like how 727s needed to be retrofit with an external door locking device, appropriately named a Cooper vane.

grouch said:

I used to think it was funny to use DB Cooper at restaurants. I only remember one guy getting it after years of trying. He said "you are younger than I imagined". I told him money can do wonders.

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Fun idea.

I think here, in the Pacific Northwest, you'd have slightly more name recognition... (flight was between Portland and Seattle, which really couldn't have been more than an hour in length!)

One of my favorite components of that whole story was him drinking a 'lemon-lime soda with whiskey', one half way through the process. Nothing like the casual operative.

Looks like I am late to this thread.

However, my grandfather William Wolfgang Gossett is one of the suspects:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._B._Cooper#William_Gossett

That's cool! What's your opinion?

Limited to internet reading, I have leaned lean more toward Kenneth Christiansen. (If the event was in fact survived)

My personal belief is that he successfully pulled the whole thing off. Here is why.

The money given to him during the event in 1971 had $20 bills whose serial numbers were recorded. A batch of those bills was found in 1980 in a stream in the general area where the authorities feel he exitted the aircraft. The bills had a rubber band still attached around the bundle. Forensic experts all agree the rubber would have oxidized quickly in the stream water, or just from exposure to sunlight. It appears someone with some of that money planted it there years after the event. Because that bundle of money could not have been there 9 years since the original event.

Since the last person with that money was D B Cooper, to me its pretty obvious he made it. At least, that is what the facts tell me.

Other than the bills found at the rivers edge, none of the other Serial Numbers have surfaced.
Makes you wonder how they could survive all these years and not have surfaced.

Back at that time in history, all you would have to do is wait a little while before spending the money. Before scanners or spreadsheets, I can't imagine that checking every $20 bill the banks received against a list of thousands of numbers, would feasible for very long. The money in the bundle raised a flag because of its location and the fact it was in a bundle. Then they checked it against the list.

watermelonman said:

One of my favorite stories, ever. I like how 727s needed to be retrofit with an external door locking device, appropriately named a Cooper vane.

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Thanks, that's an interesting bit of trivia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooper_vane

The money may have been taken out of the country. I like Christiansen as a suspect and he flew international flights. If you have ever been to Asia or the Caribbean they prefer American money. If Cooper exchanged the money in these places and then exchanged back to American money he would have clean money and the bills would not have been spotted in the U.S. This could have been easily done at that time with just a few trips or even 1. Nobody was checking your bags.

its just weird he took all 20's

Less chance of being noticed. Back then, a 20 would've had a lot bigger purchasing power also.

10fttall said:

Less chance of being noticed. Back then, a 20 would've had a lot bigger purchasing power also.

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Just a big bundle that's all....

Just a big bundle that's all....

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True. I guess so. There is no shortage of weird things about this case.

It is my understanding he did not request any denomination. The bank had money ready for these types of situations, remember, in the 1970's Kidnapping was rampant. I think if he survived( and I do think he did) the money left the country and was exchanged. I am sure there are other valid explanations. I just haven't thought of any.

If anyone is interested, here is what a B727 Cooper Vane looks like. The painted part is only 4.5 x 6" in size. The rounded piece extends into the surface airstream. At sufficient wind velocity the vane rotates due to the imposed drag force, closing a locking mechanism which prevents the airstair from operating in flight.



In other news, the FBI announced on 12 July 2016 they were suspending further work on the D B Cooper case. Referring to the phrase “Northwest hijacking" or NORJACK case, the FBI stated the reason as "investigative resources and manpower are diverted from programs that more urgently need attention."

Somewhere 'ol DB himself is smiling.

The "experts" claim that there was little chance of him surviving the jump. Dressed in a trench coat and hard soled shoes he jumped into a dark, rainy night and would have landed in a snowy forest miles from anywhere. The trees and/or the elements would have gotten him. That's fine with me; I have never understood the romanticizing of a felon who robs people and puts others at risk solely for personal gain.