Article of the Week - D. B. Cooper

D. B. Cooper
This 1972 F.B.I. composite drawing is the
only known resemblance of "Dan Cooper," the
man who hijacked a plane and $200,000 in 1971

D. B. Cooper is the name popularly used to refer to an unidentified man who hijacked a Boeing 727 aircraft in the airspace between Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington, USA on November 24, 1971. He extorted $200,000 in ransom and parachuted to an uncertain fate. Despite an extensive manhunt and an exhaustive (and ongoing) FBI investigation, the perpetrator has never been located or positively identified. To date, the case remains the only unsolved airline hijacking in American aviation history.

The suspect purchased his airline ticket under the alias Dan Cooper, but due to a news media miscommunication, he became known in popular lore as "D. B. Cooper." Hundreds of leads have been pursued in the ensuing years, but no conclusive evidence has ever surfaced regarding Cooper's true identity or whereabouts, and the bulk of the ransom money has never been recovered. Numerous theories, of widely-varying plausibility, have been proposed by experts, reporters, and amateur enthusiasts.

While FBI investigators have insisted from the beginning that Cooper probably did not survive his risky jump, the agency maintains an active case file—which has grown to more than 60 volumes—and continues to solicit creative ideas and new leads from the public.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "D. B. Cooper"