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After 45 years, FBI closes investigation into unsolved 'DB Cooper' hijacking
- elicash 10y agoI remember hearing about this case towards the end of Mad Men: http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/04/16/don_draper_to_become_d_b_cooper_in_mad_men_finale_a_skyjacking_expert_weighs.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/04/16/don_draper_to...
- pencildiver 10y agoI thought this case was solved in Prison Break...
- 13of40 10y ago"She said staff time and manpower devoted to the case is diverting from programs that more urgently need attention, so the FBI decided to close its active investigation." I'm surprised they don't have an (even unannounced) THX-1138 style limit on how much effort they spend on a single suspect. My wife had her purse stolen and about $10,000 extracted from various accounts a few years back, and the amount of effort they spent on the case is far less than a 20th of this one.
- xrange 10y agoI'm going to go out on a limb and guess that the hijacking with hostages was what put the case on the radar, not the $200,000.
- protomyth 10y agoI cannot imagine it would be "career enhancing" to be an FBI agent assigned to DB Cooper in the 2010's.
- jonny_eh 10y agoImagine if you solved it though!
- j1vms 10y agoUnless, of course, you are Fox Mulder. Then it would matter not that it isn't quite career enhancing. And, it's exactly the kind of case you want to be on.
- krapp 10y ago"It turns out DB Cooper was a shapeshifting alien hybrid, and that most of the incident was a false memory construct implanted by the Men In Black to hide the fact that he didn't escape using a parachute, but a teleporter."
- johan_larson 10y agoAlready better than season 10. Bring it on.
- johan_larson 10y agoBest bet, they haven't spent any significant resources on this case in decades. With no credible leads, what would any assigned staff be investigating? Declaring the case closed is an administrative issue, nothing more.
- akiselev 10y agoIf this case was still active, the staff would probably be involved in monitoring the banking system for the serial numbers of the bills given to the hijacker, as well as going over any seizures that included hard currency (for example: drug busts and civil forfeitures across the country; not a small task). Theoretically, the job could be done by a single python script with a direct line to some central currency database fed by all banks and local law enforcement but with government, everything is more complicated.
- takeda 10y agoKeep in mind that the $200,000 is equal to over $1,000,000 of today's money. Also, as someone else pointed out, there's also the hijacking endangering the passengers which probably more serious than taking the money.
- Apocryphon 10y agoNewsradio had an answer to this mystery far before these other shows: http://kentuckysportsradio.com/pop-culture/the-legend-of-d-b-cooper-in-pop-culture/ http://kentuckysportsradio.com/pop-culture/the-legend-of-d-b...
- verandaguy 10y agoAnd just like that, Tommy Wiseau can breathe a sigh of relief[0]. [0] https://xkcd.com/1400/
- waits 10y agoThat made my day.
- Viper007Bond 10y agoClickable: https://xkcd.com/1400/ https://xkcd.com/1400/
- devy 10y agoFor the ones who's unfamiliar with this case, there is a very detailed wikipedia page with close to 200 references for this topic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._B._Cooper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._B._Cooper
- aresant 10y agoMost DB Cooper references I've read consider him to be some cross between a folk-hero and lovable-rogue due to the audacity of his crime, lack of harm to civilians, and the idea that he might have actually gotten away with it. But fascinating to read the Wikipedia entry and realize that DB Cooper, and the no less than 15 copycat "parachute hijackings" he inspired in the same year, created a watershed moment in Airport Security that accelerated our steady march to today's over bearing TSA: "In all, 15 hijackings similar to Cooper's—all unsuccessful—were attempted in 1972.[130] With the advent of universal luggage searches in 1973 (see Airport security) the general incidence of hijackings dropped precipitously.[131]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._B._Cooper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._B._Cooper
- esaym 10y agoIt also helped that Boeing fitting the 727 with a "Cooper Lock" for the rear loading hatch. Basically a latch with a wind vane that once enough airflow moved over it, it would auto lock the hatch from the outside and thus couldn't be opened in flight. If I remember correctly.
- jonathankoren 10y agoInterestingly, there's evidence that the CIA knew about -- and perhaps utilized -- the Boeing 727's latent air drop capabilities as part of Air America.[0] [0] http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/the-cia-proved-that-a-boeing-727-can-perform-air-drops-1566155708 http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/the-cia-proved-that-a-boein...
- smoodles 10y agoOne small data point, I've heard the same from my Pops who was involved with Air America at the time.
- Trill-I-Am 10y agoWow. Does he talk about it much?
- daveslash 10y agoAdmittedly, this is not a high quality comment, but I've always liked The Far Side's 1988 speculation of Cooper's fate. http://imgur.com/snDErQi http://imgur.com/snDErQi
- ank_the_elder 10y agoThat's one lucky farm owner
- Natsu 10y agoThat may not be far off. It seems to me like the simplest explanation is that he was injured during the jump and died sometime later, with his body never being found. So he managed to conceal himself and died where no one could find him.
- chatmasta 10y agoThe problem with the hypothesis DB Cooper died is that, where was the corresponding missing person report a few days later? The FBI profilers think that the hijacker held a job, and that's why he picked the day leading into a four day weekend; so he had time to return to the job without raising suspicion. Assuming that's an accurate profile, then surely at least one person (workmate or family member) would file a missing person report within days of the hijacking. But there's no mention of this on the DB Cooper wiki page.
- pcunite 10y agoIn the sketches, he looks like Cary Grant.
- rand1012 10y agoIf only they put so much work into investigating Hillary Clinton.
- kelvin0 10y agoIf a puppet seems astray, who is at fault? The puppet or the puppeteer?
- godgod 10y agoDB Cooper never intended to hijack the plane.
- russdill 10y agoThey apparently have some DNA from the tie he left behind. It'd be interesting to add it to GEDmatch.
- l33tbro 10y agoThey talk about it in the article. It may have been run surreptitiously.
- secabeen 10y agoHe's dead, and he died in or shortly after the jump. Other than the money that the kid found near the Columbia River, none of the bills given to him as ransom have ever been found in circulation, anywhere. Whatever fortune he received from the FBI was not beneficially used by him, or anyone else he could have paid with it.
- bogomipz 10y agoYou can not state that as fact. You do not know that. Nobody knows what this person's fate was. That was a theory that was bandied about by the FBI. And it was convenient theory for them given that they could not solve the crime.
- GCA10 10y agoI'm with you 99.999% of the way. When no remains or money are found, that's the logical conclusion. It's a parlor game at best to conjure up some scenario where he gets out, minus the money -- and stays incognito ever after. There are loose parallels to the fates of the three guys who escaped from Alcatraz in 1962, and whose bodies were never found. http://www.npr.org/2012/06/12/154766199/50-years-later-mystery-of-alcatraz-escape-endures http://www.npr.org/2012/06/12/154766199/50-years-later-myste... and also: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30349106 http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30349106 Survival theories end up getting very contrived in both cases. The rational side of me votes "Dead," but I can still be lured into reading an occasional speculative piece that tries to go somewhere with the last sliver of doubt. In Cooper's case, the potential landing area was so vast & rugged that I'm guessing even the stubborn souls at the FBI couldn't pull off anything resembling an effective, quadrant-by-quadrant search for remains. Would bones left out in the open still be identifiable? Or are they most likely dust by now?
- colejohnson66 10y agoRegarding Alcatraz, the Mythbusters have shown it to be possible to do what they supposedly did (paddle to shore). How they would've managed to survive with no money leads me to agree that they probably died.
- fauria 10y agoFor those of you interested in the technical details of the hijack, USPA's magazine Parachutist published an interesting and thorough series of articles on the topic back in 2010: http://parachutistonline.com/feature/secrets-db-cooper-part-one-notorious-flight-305 http://parachutistonline.com/feature/secrets-db-cooper-part-...
- caf 10y agoI think about the DB Cooper hijacking every time I fly on a B717 (not the same aircraft model obviously, but has the same centrally-mounted rear emergency exit).
- anotheryou 10y agoComment/Story from the Widow of one of the Suspects: https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/3sdg9u/db_cooper_examining_the_1995_deathbed_confession/cz2lk61 https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/3sdg9u... No idea if it's really the 75yo posting to reddit, but the story is so elaborate, if it's a hoax I'd still like it. and a picture: http://cbsnews2.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/r/2000/08/22/ca3bd939-a642-11e2-a3f0-029118418759/thumbnail/620x350/d259a147e1f2e21d1d7a295a4a155b42/image227044x.jpg http://cbsnews2.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/r/2000/08/22/ca3bd939-a...
- roflchoppa 10y agoI got this girl and she wants me to duke her I told her I'd come scoop her around 8, she said "Super!" That sounds great, shorty girl's a trooper No matter what I need her to do, she be like "Super!" Own his own throne, the boss like King Koopa On the microphone he flossed the ring "Super!" Average emcees is like a TV blooper MF DOOM, he's like D.B. Cooper
- kolanos 10y agoAnyone else not terribly convinced about the FBI's insistence that Dan Cooper didn't survive the jump when all the copycats who also parachuted, in similar areas (Utah, Nevada, etc.) all survived? In fact, one of the copycats is pretty much the exact same jump aside from the location (Utah instead of Washington), same 727 aircraft and everything.
- mikeash 10y agoOne death out of sixteen jumps is about the fatality rate I'd expect for parachuting out of an airliner like that.
- Fuzzwah 10y agoWhile it is a DC9 not a 727, the dropzone at Perris kind of proves that wrong: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3TtL2cmlcM&t=3m30s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3TtL2cmlcM&t=3m30s
- lloyddobbler 10y agoWas just about to come on here and post this. I've got 5 jumps out of the Perris jet (while it was still flying). Interestingly, all the DB Cooper stuff was one reason Perris shut it down. It cost them an inordinate amount of money to get through the red tape to be able to allow sport skydiving out of it (courtesy of the 'Cooper Lock' modifications), that once the engines came due for maintenance, they opted not to throw more money down the drain. It was a sad, sad day for the skydiving world.
- emilburzo 10y agoDamn, I'm jealous. What's it like to jump the jet? The most impressive (for me) aircrafts that I jumped were the C-27J Spartan and MI8 helicopter, but I don't think they come close to the jet.
- mikeash 10y agoCooper jumped at night over unfriendly and fairly unknown terrain. Hardly the same as a day jump into a prepared LZ.
- twhb 10y agoOriginal source: https://www.fbi.gov/seattle/press-releases/2016/update-on-investigation-of-1971-hijacking-by-d.b.-cooper https://www.fbi.gov/seattle/press-releases/2016/update-on-in... KOMO seems to have misinterpreted the press release: the FBI is not closing the case, they're discontinuing active investigation. The case remains open, and new physical evidence is still accepted.
- hudibras 10y agoGrowing up in suburban Seattle in the 1980s, all of us kids had great fun speculating on whose dad could secretly be D.B. Cooper.
- brucefancher 10y agoThe bastards will never catch me.