D. B. Cooper
D. B. Cooper is the name used to refer to a famous airplane hijacker.
At 16:35 on Thanksgiving Eve, November 24, 1971 in the United States, a man travelling under the name Dan Cooper hijacked a Northwest Orient Airlines Boeing 727-051, flight 305, flying from Portland International Airport (PDX) in Portland, Oregon, with the threat of a bomb (he had a briefcase containing wires and "red sticks"). He was dressed entirely in black and wearing sunglasses.
When the plane landed at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport near Seattle, Washington at 17:45, its intended destination, he released the passengers in exchange for $200,000 and four parachutes. At 19:45 he then had the air crew take the plane back into the air, ordering them to fly towards Mexico at low speed and altitude with the landing gear down and 15 degrees of flap. At some point during the journey he jumped out of the rear stairway of the airplane with the money and parachutes. The FBI believed his descent was at 20:11 over southwest Washington, because the rear stairway "bumped" at that time. His descent went unnoticed by the United States Air Force F-106 jet fighters tracking the airliner.
Despite an eighteen-day search of the projected landing zone no trace of the man was found, and it is unknown whether he survived the escape. On February 13, 1980, $5,800 (in bundles of $20 bills) of the ransom money was found five miles northwest of Vancouver, Washington on the bank of the Columbia River by a family on a picnic.
The FBI questioned and then released a man by the name of Daniel B. Cooper, who was never considered a significant suspect. Due to a miscommunication with the media, however, the initials "D. B." became firmly associated with the hijacker and this is how he is now known.
Following three similar (but less successful) hijackings in 1972, Boeing 727 aircraft were ordered by the Federal Aviation Administration to be fitted with a device known as a "Cooper Vane", a mechanical aerodynamic wedge, which prevents the rear stairway from being lowered in flight.
One of the 1972 hijackings was by a man named Richard McCoy Jr., a Vietnam veteran and a pilot who got away with $500,000 but was captured, escaped, and was killed in a subsequent gunfight. Some became convinced that McCoy was Cooper because he resembled the sketch. However, others believe this was merely a copycat crime.
In August 2000, U.S. News and World Report ran an article about a widow in Pace, Florida named Jo Weber and her claim that her late husband, Duane Weber, was D. B. Cooper. Before his death in 1995, Duane had told her "I'm Dan Cooper." She became suspicious and began checking into her late husband's background. Duane Weber had served in the Army during World War II and later had served time in a prison near the Portland airport. Ms. Weber recalled that her husband had once had a nightmare where he talked in his sleep about jumping from a plane. She had once found an old plane ticket in his papers for Northwest Airlines that said SEA-TAC. One of the most convincing pieces of evidence Ms. Weber related was the fact she had checked out a book on the Cooper case from the local library and saw notations in it that matched her husband's handwriting. Ms. Weber began corresponding with FBI Agent Ralph Himmelsbach, the chief investigator of the Cooper case. Himmelsbach has said Weber is one of the best suspects he has come across.
The community of Ariel in Cowlitz County, Washington commemorates his crime with an annual celebration called "D.B. Cooper Days".