D.B. Cooper

D. B. Cooper
A 1972 FBI composite drawing of D. B. Cooper
Status	Unknown
Other names	Dan Cooper
Known for	Hijacking a Boeing 727 on November 24, 1971, and parachuting from the plane mid-flight; has never been identified or captured.

D. B. Cooper is a media epithet popularly used to refer to an unidentified man who hijacked a Boeing 727 aircraft in the airspace between Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington, on November 24, 1971. He extorted $200,000 in ransom (equivalent to $1,180,000 in 2016) and parachuted to an uncertain fate. Despite an extensive manhunt and protracted FBI investigation, the perpetrator has never been located or identified. The case remains the only unsolved air piracy in commercial aviation history.

While available evidence and a preponderance of expert opinion suggested from the beginning that Cooper probably did not survive his high-risk jump, the FBI nevertheless maintained an active investigation for 45 years following the hijacking. Despite a case file that grew to over 60 volumes over that time period, no definitive conclusions have been reached regarding Cooper's true identity or whereabouts. The suspect purchased his airline ticket using the alias Dan Cooper, but because of a news media miscommunication he became known in popular lore as "D. B. Cooper".

Numerous theories of widely varying plausibility have been proposed over the years by investigators, reporters, and amateur enthusiasts. The discovery of a small cache of ransom bills along the banks of the Columbia River in February 1980 triggered renewed interest, but ultimately only deepened the mystery, and the great majority of the ransom remains unrecovered.

The FBI officially suspended active investigation of the case in July 2016, but continues to request that any physical evidence that might emerge related to the parachutes or the ransom money be submitted for analysis.

On the afternoon of Thanksgiving eve, November 24, 1971, a man carrying a black attaché case approached the flight counter of Northwest Orient Airlines at Portland International Airport. He identified himself as "Dan Cooper" and purchased a one-way ticket on Flight 305, a 30-minute trip to Seattle.