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D.B. Cooper: The Parachuting Airline-Hijacker

Do you reckon D B Cooper survived?

  • yes

    Votes: 20 50.0%

  • no

    Votes: 20 50.0%
  • Total voters
    40
That's a good analogy, only DB never killed anyone except possibly himself. Anyone seen the 80s film of the case with Treat Williams? Do they come up with a solution? Something closer to the time it was made may be more accurate (yeah, I know, but Hollywood).
 
Now we are in the land of youtube embeds...


An enormous number of Fortean links from this video.
 
FBI has officialy closed the DB Cooper case

http://keprtv.com/news/nation-world...investigation-into-famous-db-cooper-hijacking

there's more at the link, but it's basically just a rehashing of the case.
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SEATTLE (KOMO) - Forty-five years after an unidentified man parachuted from the rear of a hijacked jetliner and into folklore with $200,000 in cash, the FBI is officially closing its investigation into the famous "DB Cooper" case that has transfixed people around the world ever since.

FBI spokeswoman Ayn Dietrich-Williams said Tuesday the still-unsolved case was closed "in order to focus on other investigative priorities." She called the DB Cooper hijacking case over Western Washington "one of the longest and most exhaustive investigations in our history."

During the course of the "NORJACK investigation," as it is known by the FBI, agents reviewed all credible leads, coordinated between multiple field offices to conduct searches, collected all available evidence, and interviewed all identified witnesses, Dietrich-Williams said.

"Over the years, the FBI has applied numerous new and innovative investigative techniques, as well as examined countless items at the FBI Laboratory," she said. "Evidence obtained during the course of the investigation will now be preserved for historical purposes at FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C."
 
So we will never know. Unless whoever it was is still alive and makes a convincing deathbed confession, it will join the annoying list of unresolvables.
 
Famous hijacker case of DB Cooper goes cold nearly half a century after he parachuted into history. FBI acknowledges defeat.

Always loved this one, but alas, the discovery of the money bundles would suggest it didn't end well.
 
Out of all America’s skyjackings, only one remains unsolved.

The case has confounded FBI investigators for decades — its astonishing details, clues and alleged participants have become the stuff of American criminal lore.

The story has inspired songs, T-shirts and books, and the main character has, at times, bordered on American folk hero status.

Now, after one of “the longest and most exhaustive investigations” in FBI history, the agency is finally moving on from the search for the notorious skyjacker known as D.B. Cooper, according to a statement released by the FBI.

The riveting search — which Washington Post reporter Cynthia Gorney once described as “Jesse James meets the Loch Ness monster” — is more or less over.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...t-may-never-be-solved/?utm_term=.065487782492

Edit: Threads merged - Yith
 
Cochise said:
So we will never know. Unless whoever it was is still alive and makes a convincing deathbed confession, it will join the annoying list of unresolvables.
Click to expand...

It seems very relevant that none of the stolen money was ever presented, which makes me think someone at some point will happen across it somewhere remote, along with what's left of Cooper.
 
OneWingedBird said:
It seems very relevant that none of the stolen money was ever presented, which makes me think someone at some point will happen across it somewhere remote, along with what's left of Cooper.
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That's the basic premise of Without a Paddle, a not very funny comedy from the 00s. But were there not a good few notes retrieved from the relevant wilderness area, suggesting if he did survive he didn't get all his loot?
 
I wasn't aware they had found money bundles on that 'beach' .....at any rate there was a recent documentary where two investigators claim it's some man named Rackstra based on their research. He's ex military and they have what they consider good reasons to suspect him. They claim he did survive with the money and is still out there and they have tracked him down. Some of their 'evidence' is compelling but there are other suspects that seem likely also, but then if money bundles were found still in the 'woods' in the general area where he jumped then what does that mean?
An unsolved mystery indeed.

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Edit: More Cooper posts merged - would be grateful if members would employ search before starting new threads in order to establish whether the topic has been discussed previously - Yith
 
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Checking back to the first two pages of this thread, Cooper had $200k, around $8k of that was found decomposing near a river, of the remainder:

Cooper has not used his hijacking loot on tequila or anything else. The FBI distributed to law enforcers and banks 100,000 copies of a 34-page pamphlet listing all the serial numbers from the Cooper $20 bills. Besides those found on the Columbia River, not a single bill has ever shown up in circulation, as far as the FBI admits.
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I suppose he could have survived the trip to the ground, but lost the money into the river, or not survived and both were washed away and long decomposed.
 
Wait, did I manage to get in a news link that wasn't a repost? :glee:
 
Yep, you were the first of three, I think.
 
They claim he did survive with the money and is still out there and they have tracked him down.
Click to expand...

The money is the part I find most difficult about this, I don't mind believing that bigfoot or UFOs might exist, but the idea that someone has sat on almost $200,000 for 45 years... not so sure about that one. :D

It defeats the object of conducting the robbery/skyjacking and all the risk that came with it.
 
Content sadly not available in my location. :(

If i get time tomorrow I might have a faff around and see if it will work through a proxy.
 
OneWingedBird said:
Content sadly not available in my location. :(

If i get time tomorrow I might have a faff around and see if it will work through a proxy.
Click to expand...
The first 2m 38s worked for me, but I can't find how to watch the rest.
 
The History Channel is a popular cable channel here in the US.....sorry about the lack of access.
We have similar trouble from time to time with British links. Maybe there is an alternative link.
 
After 45 years, if this guy was a para-trooping expert with experience someone would have recognised the photo-fit by now.

Also, little was made of the fact that he was wearing clothes which would probably been ripped off in the air by the fall, on a cold Novembers night, (not to mention the wind chill).

When aeroplanes break up in mid air, victims clothes are often ripped off during the fall. That's why parachutists wear purpose made suits.

I am now convinced he was a chancer who passed out and landed in water, hence no body. If he passed out before opening the parachute then that would explain why the parachute was not found either.

 
ChrisBoardman said:
After 45 years, if this guy was a para-trooping expert with experience someone would have recognised the photo-fit by now.

Also, little was made of the fact that he was wearing clothes which would probably been ripped off in the air by the fall, on a cold Novembers night, (not to mention the wind chill).

When aeroplanes break up in mid air, victims clothes are often ripped off during the fall. That's why parachutists wear purpose made suits.

I am now convinced he was a chancer who passed out and landed in water, hence no body. If he passed out before opening the parachute then that would explain why the parachute was not found either.
Click to expand...
chucknstu.jpg



I thought it was mostly due to normal clothes can be loose and flap around which might interfere with the parachute which may have happened. Many dive schools allow you to wear normal clothes in a jump.

They never actually saw what he was wearing when he jumped out or that he failed to notice that the reserve had been sown shut unless of course he cut the stitches open.

He gave very specific flight instructions to the crew so obviously knew what he was doing that suggests he wasn't a chancer and planned it in detail. I can't see him leaving the jumping out of the plane to chance it just doesn't fit.

As to his ID? Could have been an ex-army para/pilot from a foreign country. There has been plenty of conflicts from the end of the 2nd world war to 171 that he could have served in. He may have worked on his accent after all he planned everything else.

I personally wonder if he terminally ill or owed so much money that he as willing to risk the jump at night. It's the only thing that let him down. The rest of it was just too well planned.
 
Naughty_Felid said:
I thought it was mostly due to normal clothes can be loose and flap around which might interfere with the parachute which may have happened. Many dive schools allow you to wear normal clothes in a jump.

They never actually saw what he was wearing when he jumped out or that he failed to notice that the reserve had been sown shut unless of course he cut the stitches open.

He gave very specific flight instructions to the crew so obviously knew what he was doing that suggests he wasn't a chancer and planned it in detail. I can't see him leaving the jumping out of the plane to chance it just doesn't fit.

As to his ID? Could have been an ex-army para/pilot from a foreign country. There has been plenty of conflicts from the end of the 2nd world war to 171 that he could have served in. He may have worked on his accent after all he planned everything else.

I personally wonder if he terminally ill or owed so much money that he as willing to risk the jump at night. It's the only thing that let him down. The rest of it was just too well planned.
Click to expand...

Okay, the sort of knowledge he had would not be that hard to obtain if you were an amateur parachutist and made friends with pilots (at the same flight club) and got to know a bit about planes. You could learn enough during pub chats over a few beers.

Also, parachute straps go round the groin and everywhere so that would hold the cloths on (forgot that bit), but Cooper would have been freezing on that November night.

An amateur could have learned how to open the door and jump out.

But I think a pro would have known not to on a November night with the FBI everywhere.

More a criminal than an expert I think.
 
Analysis of DB Cooper's tie reveals new evidence

http://www.king5.com/news/crime/new-evidence-was-db-cooper-boeing-employee/385924766

more at link above
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The scientific team has been analyzing particles removed from the clip-on tie left behind by Cooper after he hijacked a Northwest Orient passenger jet in November 1971.

A powerful electron microscope found more than 100,000 particles on old the JCPenny tie, including cerium, strontium sulfide and pure titanium.

“These are what they call rare earth elements. They’re used in very narrow fields, for very specific things,” said Tom Kaye, lead researcher for the group that calls itself Citizen Sleuths.

Kaye said the elements were rarely used in 1971, during the time of Cooper’s daring leap with a parachute from the passenger jet
 
That's genuinely fascinating - would be impressive if it could be whittled down to a list of credible candidates this far down the line.
 
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