Dan Cooper was the first person in US history to take a plane for ransom. He jumped with a parachute from a height of 3 thousand meters, taking away 200 thousand dollars with him. Having disappeared forever, the hijacker remained one of the main mysteries of the 20th century, whose true name has not been established so far.
Flight 305
It was 1971. On November 24, on the eve of Thanksgiving, Nortwest Orient operated one of the shortest routes. The distance between Seattle and Portland is 233 km, which Boeing 727 can overcome in just 30 minutes. At Portland Airport, boarding for flight 305 was announced and passengers rushed to the ticket office for tickets. For their acquisition did not require identification, so the name was indicated by the citizen.
36 people boarded an aircraft (capacity - 94), manned by a crew of two pilots, a flight engineer and two stewardesses. Among the passengers was a thin man in dark mirrored glasses, dressed as a businessman: a suit, tie, black raincoat, and a felt hat. On his shoulder he carried a medium-sized bag, which was usual for travel. His place (18C) was in the tail of the cabin next to the stewardess Florence Schaffner. The man was 40-45 years old. That was Dan Cooper.
Hijacking an aircraft for ransom
After a successful take-off, the man asked the stewardess to bring bourbon with soda, passing a note in exchange. The stewardess, accustomed to the attention of men, believed that the passenger was flirting with her, and was in no hurry to read it. But he insisted. The note said about the seizure of an aircraft with a purpose of redemption in the amount of two hundred thousand dollars. Armed with a bomb, the offender threatened to carry out an explosion on board the ship if his demands were not met. In addition to money, Dan Cooper demanded parachutes: 2 shoulder and 2 harnesses.
Calling Tina Maclow, a colleague on the crew, the girl was convinced of the seriousness of the intentions of the man. He opened the bag and showed both the explosive device with the ends of the bare wires. Information was urgently transmitted to the pilots. Having contacted the airline and the secret services, the ship's commander was ordered to land the plane at the request of the hijacker at Seattle-Tacoma Airport in exchange for fulfilling his requirements. While preparing money and parachutes, the Boeing 727 circled in the air with frightened passengers on board. After delivering the cargo with money, the criminal released everyone except the stewardess Tina Maclow and the pilots. He ordered them to head for Mexico.
Leap into the unknown
The plane refueled and took off at 19-40. The criminal managed to convince to sit in Reno (Nevada) due to a possible lack of fuel. Having agreed, he demanded to fly at low altitude at a speed of 320 km / h with the landing gear and flaps lowered. The stewardess, who finally noticed how he wrapped his waist around with some kind of rope, Dan Cooper sent into the cockpit. From that moment, no one else saw him.
The liner was accompanied by two jets, but in the evening, rain and poor visibility did not allow them to notice anything during the flight. When the Boeing 727 landed in Reno, two parachutes and a Cooper tie were discovered on board. Any other evidence, including a note, disappeared. In the area of 20 hours and 10 minutes, the instruments showed depressurization of the cabin, which may indicate that D. B. Cooper jumped at that time with a parachute, opening the rear gangway.
The evidence
For the FBI, solving a mysterious crime was a matter of honor. Based on surveys of the crew and passengers, a sniper head was drawn up and a possible landing area of 45 square meters was calculated. km in the area of Lake Mervin (Washington state), the serial numbers of banknotes handed over to the criminal were sent out. Despite the involvement of about forty FBI agents and careful combing of the area by the military, it was not possible to find any traces of the living or dead Cooper.
Checks by name gave nothing. Obviously, it is fictitious. Any versions were considered why the criminal called himself Cooper, the hero of the Belgian comic strip, which has no distribution in the United States. They were looking for the Canadian track, where books were actively sold in those years. New techniques eventually revealed traces of chloride on a tie. This confirms that the bomb was real. Opportunities have appeared to make the DNA of the criminal, but there are no real suspects with whom it would be possible to identify him.
Over the years, Dan Cooper did not use money, because labeled bills did not appear in circulation. In 1980, on the coast of Colombia, 3 packs of moldy dollar bills were found that matched the numbers transferred to the criminal. 5 thousand 800 dollars were found 30 km from the alleged landing of a paratrooper who committed the seizure of the aircraft. But these were kilometers against the river, which is difficult to explain using simple logic.
Alive or not?
The main version remains the assumption of the death of Cooper during the jump. In her support, she says the following:
- 200 thousand were transferred to the hijacker in bills of $ 20, which amounts to 10 kg. Jumping with such a load in the absence of visibility and good knowledge of the terrain seems extremely risky, even for a well-trained skydiver.
- Of the two types of parachutes, D. B. Cooper chose a less maneuverable model, which indicates the absence of the necessary professional skills.
- Discovered money indicates that they were washed ashore after a long stay in the water. Lake Mervin is the most likely parachutist landing site, which explains the appearance of dollars in the river.
- Their appearance upstream of the Columbia River, connected to the lake, can be explained by the fact that the paratrooper caught on the blade of a passing passenger ship, which, in bad weather and poor visibility, went unnoticed by the team. In this case, Cooper's body was not found because it was thrown into the ocean.
- Versions that James Johnson, who committed a similar crime, or Kenneth Christiansen, a former airline steward, could not have been confirmed.
The year 1971 was marked by the fact that a few weeks after the events described, one of the newspapers received a letter from a man who called himself Dan Cooper. He explained the robbery of the airline with a desire to live comfortably 14 months, which remained until his death. Those who believed in the words of the stranger still adhere to the version that the legendary man is alive and managed to beat the FBI.
Taken measures
In 1972, began a "boom" of hijackings in the United States. Of the 31 cases, 15 completely repeated the script of D. B. Cooper. The authorities decided to stop similar crimes by taking urgent measures, including:
- Supplying the rear ramp of the Boeing 727 with a self-locking device in the form of a plate that can rotate 90 ° under the influence of a strong air stream during flight. When landing, the plate acquires its original position, allowing you to open the entrance. The design went down in history as the “Cooper blade”.
- Installation of the “eye” on the door of the cockpit, which allows you to observe what is happening in the passenger cabin.
- Organization of screening of passengers at the airport (“screening”) and their baggage, which initially caused their indignation.
Case closure
It took the FBI 45 years to acknowledge its impotence in solving the case of hijacking a Boeing 727. Huge amounts of money were spent on various kinds of experiments, including dropping a paratrooper from an aircraft under similar conditions, researching the bottom of Lake Mervin and checking any call, giving a new lead in business. On the official website on July 8, 2016, a message appeared about the termination of the investigation in order to redistribute resources in favor of other significant tasks.
In the city of Ariel, in the zone of the alleged landing of the paratrooper, parties are annually held in honor of the legendary hijacker. D. B. Cooper for residents is a legendary man, a thief-gentleman who defied the authorities during the extremely unpopular war in Vietnam. In books, feature films and songs, he appears as a symbol of a fearless person who jumped during a downpour and poor visibility towards immortality.