What do you think of this fact?
A man in a suit boards a plane, demands a ransom and jumps into the night with it. Sounds like Hollywood. It’s the only unsolved airplane hijacking in US history.
The flight before Thanksgiving
In 1971, on the day before Thanksgiving, a man calling himself “Dan Cooper” hijacked a Northwest Orient flight out of Portland, Oregon. He demanded $200,000 in American bills and four parachutes.
In Seattle, he got both. In exchange, he let the passengers go. Then he had the Boeing 727 take off again. Somewhere over the US Northwest, he jumped with the money.
After that: nothing. No body, no parachute, no Cooper.
Hundreds of suspects, no proof
Over the years, the FBI gathered information on hundreds of suspects. None could be linked to the hijacking beyond a reasonable doubt.
In 1980, a trace did turn up: someone found several thousand dollars of the ransom near Portland. Whether Cooper survived the jump, the money didn’t say.
In 2016, the FBI drew a line under the case. It said it had “redirected resources” to other investigative priorities. After 45 years, the official hunt for the man who vanished into thin air was over.
Bonus fact: Cooper didn’t use a door. According to FlightGlobal, he jumped from the Boeing 727’s rear air-stair, which could be lowered at the tail in mid-flight.
Amateur sleuths are still trying to figure out who he was and whether he made it to the ground. There are no answers.
A man, a bag full of money and an open tail. That’s all he left behind.