D.B. Cooper: The man who highjacked a plane and got away with it (supposedly)
50 replies, posted
I was inspired to make this thread because of a documentary of D.B. Cooper I saw on Nat Geo. :smile:
[img]http://symonsez.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/db_cooper.jpg[/img]
FBI sketches
D.B. Cooper, a.k.a. [b]Dan Cooper[/b] (name he used when he boarded the plane), was quite a badass on November 24, 1971, as he decided to highjack an airplane! Now, this requires a lot of explaining, but I promise I will try to explain it all with as much briefness as possible [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._B._Cooper]Now, here is the Wikipedia explaination (paraphrased for your convenience):[/url]
[quote=wikipedia]On Wednesday, November 24, 1971, a man traveling under the name [b]Dan Cooper[/b] boarded a Boeing 727-100, Northwest Orient (subsequently Northwest Airlines, now part of Delta Air Lines) Flight 305 (FAA Reg. N467US), [highlight]flying from Portland International Airport (PDX) in Portland, Oregon to Seattle, Washington[/highlight]. [highlight]Cooper was described as being in his mid-forties, and between 5 ft 10 in (1.78 m) and 6 feet (1.83 m) tall. He wore a black raincoat, loafers, a dark suit, a neatly pressed white collared shirt, a black necktie, black sunglasses and a mother of pearl tie pin[/highlight]. Cooper sat in the back of the plane in seat 18C. [highlight]After the jet had taken off from Portland, he handed a note to a young flight attendant[/highlight] named Florence Schaffner, who was seated in a jumpseat attached to the aft stair door, situated directly behind and to the left of Cooper's seat. She thought he was giving her his phone number, so she slipped it, unopened, into her pocket.[12] Cooper leaned closer and said, "Miss, you'd better look at that note. I have a bomb."[13] [highlight]In the envelope was a note that read: "I have a bomb in my briefcase. I will use it if necessary. I want you to sit next to me. You are being hijacked."[/highlight]
[highlight]The note also provided demands for $200,000, in unmarked bills, and two sets of parachutes—two main back chutes and two emergency chest chutes[/highlight]. [/quote]
$200,000 = $1,000,000 today
All of this happened without a single passenger becoming aware as to what the fuck was going on! SO basically, they finish the flight and let everyone off, and no problems arise. They refuel the plane, and Dan Cooper is given what he wants (the money and parachutes). Then they take off, following Dan Cooper's orders (which are to fly him to Mexico City).
[indent][b]This is where it things become crazy and is why Dan Cooper is a badass:[/b][/indent]
Mexico City was much too far to be flown to, so the pilot let Cooper know that and let Cooper talk it over. Cooper eventually settled for Reno, NV.
Okay, here's the thing: Boeing 727s had retractable stairs in the rear of the plane that where used for boarding passengers; Dan Cooper used this to his advantage. While the crew were in the cockpit, Cooper lowers the stairs and literally jumps out, leaving only his tie as the only (substantial) piece of evidence.
[quote=wikipedia]The FBI recovered a number of fingerprints (which may or may not have belonged to Cooper), a tie and a mother of pearl tie clip, and two of the four parachutes. Cooper was nowhere to be found, nor was his briefcase, the money, the moneybag, or the two remaining parachutes.[/quote]
[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a4/727db.gif[/img]
Now, there was quite a lot happening during the time of the jump; it was chilly, there was a heavy rainstorm (which meant VERY low visibility), and it was nighttime, so there was very little light.
[b]"WHAT?! YOU THINK I'M GOING TO REALLY BELIEVE HE SURVIVED THAT JUMP?!"[/b]
If you found yourself saying that, don't worry, you are not alone. There is so much in question about what the hell happened, but a lot points to an obvious death. Considering the horrible weather among other things, it should have been enough for Dan Cooper to have no chance of actually pulling off the jump. He most definitely became disoriented for sometime while in the air shortly after he jumped, so just thinking about whether or not he even manged to open his chute is just crazy.
To make things even more complicated, not a single piece of evidence was recovered from the ground.......well......sort of.
[quote=wikipedia][highlight]On February 10, 1980, Brian Ingram, then eight years old, was with his family on a picnic when he found $5,880 in decaying bills (a total of 294 $20 bills), still bundled in rubber bands[/highlight], approximately 40 feet (12 m) from the waterline and just 2 inches (5 cm) below the surface, on the banks of the Columbia River 5 miles (8 km) northwest of Vancouver, Washington. [highlight]After comparing the serial numbers with those from the ransom given to Cooper almost nine years earlier, it was proven that the money found by Ingram was part of the ransom given to Cooper[/highlight]. Upon the discovery, then-FBI lead investigator Ralph Himmelsbach declared that the money "must have been deposited within a couple of years after the hijacking" because "rubber bands deteriorate rapidly and could not have held the bundles together for very long." However, several area scientists recruited by the FBI for assistance with the case noted their belief that the money arrived at the beach as a result of a 1974 Army Corps of Engineers dredging operation. Furthermore, some scientists estimated that the money’s arrival must have occurred even later. Geologist Leonard Palmer of Portland State University, for example, reportedly concluded that the 1974 dredging operation did not place the money on the Columbia's riverbank because Ingram had found the bills above clay deposits put on shore by the dredge. The FBI generally agree now that the money had to have arrived at the location on the riverbank no earlier than 1974. Some investigators and hydrologists have theorized that the bundled bills washed freely into the Columbia River from one of its many connecting tributaries, such as the Washougal River, which originate or run near Cooper's suspected landing zone.
Ingram's discovery of the $5,880 reinforced the FBI's belief that Cooper probably did not survive the jump, in large part because of the unlikelihood that such a criminal would be willing to leave behind any of the loot for which he had risked his life. Authorities eventually allowed Ingram to keep a split of about $2,860 of the recovered money, with the amount being a rough estimate because of the badly deteriorated condition of the bills. On June 13, 2008, in accordance with Ingram's wishes, the Heritage Auction Galleries' Americana Memorabilia Grand Format Auction in Dallas, Texas sold fifteen of the bills to various buyers for a total of more than $37,000. As of 2009[update], the rest of the money remains unrecovered. The serial numbers of all 9,998 $20 bills that the hijacker was given were databased and placed in a search engine for public search.[/quote]
Yes, that's right, [b]11 years later[/b], a small amount of the money was found buried in the sand about 2 miles from the projected area Cooper landed.
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_McCoy,_Jr.]Here is info on the guy who decided to be a copycat and pull this same stunt, except he asked for (and got) $500,000, and also was later caught.[/url]
1000 post :w00t::kraken:
Maybe he landed in the water and died...
[QUOTE=Gman Killer;18893663]Maybe he landed in the water and died...[/QUOTE]
Yeah, that was brought up by the FBI at one point. Even if he landed in the water safely, it would have still been deathly cold and he could have died from hypothermia quite easily.
maybe he was a rogue alien and was beamed back onto his mother ship as soon as he landed.
Didn't he accidentaly use a sewn up demonstration parachute?
saw this on nat geo
You have a man crush on D.B. Cooper.
I remember a TV show episode on this. It's neat.
D.B Cooper, you say?
[img]http://comunidad.canalfx.tv/blogs/prisonbreak/Westmoreland.jpg[/img]
Though it is indeed an interesting story
What a badass.
I think he survived the jump and just accidentally dropped some money on the way down. I don't know why you would ask for a ransom in bills though. They can track the serial numbers and catch you
Cooper sounds like the kind of guy I could get along with well.
Here's what I believe(I always found this case fascinating):
He planned to jump obviously. This means he would have known about the weather. This is a guy who was planning to sky dive out of a plane NO ONE sky dives out of- he knew what he was doing.
I think upon landing he then left a small portion of the money in a direction that, if found, would lead investigators away from him. Remember, it would have taken him a while to make it back to civilization, he needed time to make it to his safehouse. This is the money that was found years later.
Once he made it to his rendevous point, he had fresh supplies(ie clothes, ID, passport, etc) and transportation to deal with the money. I think he already had arrangements to get it out of the country, where he could safely launder it. He took his profit and escaped.
I think in the years since then the money has been recovered(after it was put back in circulation), but the government/insurance industry/airline have no interest in letting people know he got away with it. So everyone pretends like the money never turned up and he must have died.
Look at that fukkin gif
Read it as douche bag cooper.
Doesn't it seem weird that he would leave his tie? Like "oh man I just stole $200,000 maybe I should take off my tie and leave it here."
Haha, you best give me tools for this. I just so happen to have a book with a four page story on DB Cooper.
[b]Possible Suspect #1[/b]
On April 7th, 1972, four months after Cooper's successful hijacking, another hijacker stole a plane in Denver, using the same M.O. as D.B. Cooper. The Denver flight was also a 727 with a rear stairway, from which the hijacker made his getaway by parachute. A tip led police to Richard McCoy Jr., a man with an unusual profile: married with two children, a former Sunday school teacher, a law enforcement major at Brigham Young University, a former Green Beret helicopter pilot with service in Vietname, and an avid skydiver. When FBI agents arrested McCoy two days later they found a jump-suit and duffel bag containing half a million dollars.
[b]Possible Suspect #2[/b]
In August 2000, a Florida widow told US News and World Report that her husband was D.B. Cooper. Jo Weber claimed that shortly before his death in 1995, her husband Duane told her, "I'm Dan Cooper." Later she remembered he'd talked in his sleep about jumping out of an airplane. She checked into his background and discovered he'd spent time in prison near Portland, Oregon, then found an old Northwest Airlines ticked stub from the Seattle-Tacoma airport among his papers. She found a book about D.B. Cooper in the local library-it had notations in the margins matching her husbands handwriting.
[b]Possible Suspect #3[/b]
Elsie Rodgers of Cozad, Nebraska, often told her family about the time she was hiking near the Columbia River in Washington in the 1970s and found a human head. They never really believed her until, while going through her things shortly after her death in 2000, they found a hatbox in her attic, with a human skull in it. Could that have been the remains of a D.B. Cooper? And if so, what happened to the ransom money? Thirty years later, his fate remains a mystery.
Im DB Cooper
[QUOTE=That 0ther Guy;18904405]Im DB Cooper[/QUOTE]
Moooom, this guy is messing up this thread
I wasn't aware he was real.. they used this in Without a Paddle.
Squawk 7500.
[QUOTE=FFStudios;18904428]Moooom, this guy is messing up this thread[/QUOTE]
Too bad kid
