The Disappearing D.B. Cooper
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Florence Schaffner was a flight attendant for Northwest Orient Airlines. She was used to being hit on while at work. Pretty and charming, Florence was quick to make conversation with nervous or bored passengers. Sometimes men who were flying alone, and sometimes those not flying alone.

took this chattiness as an invitation to pursue a more romantic angle. So, when the quiet man in seat 18C handed Florence a note, she smiled but didn't open it. The guy was nice enough, clean-shaven, polite, probably 40 or 50 years old. He was dressed for a business trip, a suit, tie, and briefcase.

but Florence simply wasn't interested. She tried to be discreet when she put the note away, but the man in 18C saw and leaned toward her. Florence was sitting in a jump seat near row 18. She winced when the guy came close, expecting him to react badly to the rejection. Instead, 18C smiled and was polite. Miss, you better look at that note, he told her. I have

The man was D.B. Cooper, also known as Dan Cooper, his true name unknown. He'd bought a ticket for a one-way flight from Portland to Seattle the day before Thanksgiving in 1971. Cooper made the purchase in cash, which was uncommon even in 1971, but not enough to raise any red flags. Flight 305 went normally until Cooper handed his note to Florence. The weather was clear,

Though clouds were approaching on the horizon, Pacific-touched sunshine came in through the Boeing 727's windows. The plane seated just over 100 passengers, but it was barely a third of the way full. Not unusual for a quick afternoon flight. D.B. Cooper was relaxed. That was the term that everyone involved with the hijacking kept using in reference to Cooper.

The passengers and crew he took hostage, the police and federal agents he negotiated with, everyone agreed that DB didn't rattle. After handing Florence the note, she complied with the directions on the paper, sitting in the empty seat next to Cooper in row 18. "Could I see the bomb?" the flight attendant asked. Cooper was happy to oblige, opening the suitcase that was nested under his seat.

The container was lined with narrow red tubes and a large battery with wires all woven through. Florence thought it looked exactly like dynamite. She was nervous, but DB spoke calmly, even reassuringly. He'd ordered a bourbon and soda before passing the note to Florence and continued to sip at it while speaking with the young woman. The next step in Cooper's plan was to alert the pilots that Flight 305 was being hijacked.

He sent Florence to the cockpit with his three demands. One, cash, $200,000 in negotiable American currency. Two, four parachutes. Three, lastly, a fuel truck on standby at the airport to refuel the plane when they landed. As Florence went to talk to the pilots, Cooper settled back into his seat.

He finished his bourbon and soda and ordered another from a different flight attendant, Tina Mucklow, who had no idea he'd taken everyone on the plane hostage. DB put on a pair of dark glasses and did some sightseeing while he waited for Florence to return. Flight 305 was cruising over a long stretch of Pacific Northwestern forest. It was an endless sprawl of massive pines and even larger redwoods.

since it was late November. Many trees were either bare or in the process of shedding their leaves, but there were still bright bursts of yellow and red and brown under the plane. Cooper chatted with some of his fellow passengers while the flight crew contacted the Seattle-Tacoma airport to inform them that the plane was being held hostage. DB knew the area they were flying over well, pointing out landmarks to people in the row behind him.

He was also chain-smoking cigarettes during this time and sipping his drink, the only signs he showed of potential nerves during the tense time. Though the flight was only partially filled, there were still 35 passengers in addition to the crew that Cooper indicated he was willing to blow up if his demands weren't met. On the ground, local and federal authorities scrambled to gather the $200,000 ransom and parachutes while making arrangements for a fuel truck.

Hijackings were more common in the 1960s and 70s than in later decades. They tended to be non-violent and, oftentimes, they were political. With the hijacker demanding to be flown out of the country and then given a ransom for the passengers, most airlines at the time found it simpler to pay rather than to wait for law enforcement to catch up to the culprit and risk the plane and everyone on it.

Besides, even hijackers who headed over to Cuba, Canada, or Mexico were usually tracked and eventually apprehended. D.B. Cooper was well aware of all of these facts. Florence returned from the cockpit to assure Cooper that his ransom was being gathered along with his other demands. She was visibly nervous and kept glancing at the dark suitcase with the red tubes inside. D.B. patted her hand and promised her she'd be fine.

as long as everybody cooperated. He explained the situation to Tina, the other attendant as well. Then he settled his tab for the bourbons and left a generous tip. Make sure that they have meals ready for the flight crew when we land, Cooper told Florence as she headed back to speak to the pilots. Tell them it's part of my demands. It would take a few hours to gather everything that Cooper wanted, meaning flight 305 would need to move into a holding pattern.

To keep any passengers from panicking, the pilots went on comms to apologize and said the plane was being diverted due to a mechanical issue. Authorities on the ground approved of the deception, noting it was better to deal with 35 grumpy passengers than a bunch of terrified men, women, and children waiting to see if the man in row 18 was going to turn the plane into a fireball.

Flight 305 circled above Puget Sound, a cold expanse of water that flowed out into the Pacific. For a little over two hours, Cooper remained polite and friendly the entire time, though he continued to smoke Raleigh brand cigarettes one after another. He'd also shifted his briefcase so that it was on his lap and easily accessible. Only the flight crew knew about the bomb,

Tina's curiosity got the best of her, and she went to sit and talk with Cooper. She asked him why he was hijacking the plane, and if he had a grudge against the airline. Not against the airline, ma'am, he told her. Just a grudge. Part 2. D.B. Cooper's Final Flight Once the money and equipment was ready, authorities on the ground gave Flight 305 the green light to land. They touched down at the Seattle-Tacoma Airport and waited there.

At this point, it was after dark and raining steadily. The passengers were getting anxious waiting to depart. Many of them had caught on that there was something more serious than a generic mechanical issue. Cooper continued to communicate with the pilots via messages sent with Florence or Tina. There were police visible around the airport. Cooper was worried about snipers and told the cockpit to move to a less populated part of the landing zone. Then he instructed everyone to close the shades on their windows.

Now there was no doubt it was a hijacky. The mood in the plane was growing tenser by the moment, but DB remained calm, tapping slim fingers on his leather case. The ransom came quickly, a duffel bag filled with $20 bills. They were unmarked, but had been photographed and chosen carefully to have similar serial numbers. However, the first attempt to provide parachutes went poorly.

The go-between delivering the chutes brought military-grade packs, which Cooper immediately became suspicious of and rejected. This left authorities stuck searching for civilian-issue parachutes. Meanwhile, passengers on Flight 305 waited anxiously with their windows closed. The cabin was quiet, other than the sounds of the rain and occasional whispers between DB and the flight crew. Eventually,

Police were able to secure four civilian-style parachutes from a local skydiving school. They made the delivery and stood by for Cooper's next demands. Inside the plane, parents and travelers and day trippers all watched the man in the black suit and dark glasses, wondering if he'd let them go or keep them as hostages. DB chose to release everyone other than the pilots, a flight engineer, and a single flight attendant, Tina Mucklow.

Those left on board waited while a fuel truck began to approach slowly. While they refueled, Cooper outlined the next stage of his plan. Flight 305 was to fly low and slow towards Mexico City. Additionally, Cooper wanted the landing gear left down and the aft stairs open. This was considered extremely dangerous and the airline was able to convince DB to wait until the plane was cruising before opening the stairs.

the refueling wasn't going well. There was an unspecified issue with the first truck, so a second was brought in, then a third truck after the second one had problems. During this time, the Federal Aviation Administration requested a face-to-face meeting with Cooper to negotiate further. DB was beginning to get impatient.

He remained civil with Tina and the pilots, but his fingers tapped faster and faster against his black briefcase. Once refueling was finished, but before the FAA could send someone on board to talk, Cooper gave Tina a note for the pilots: "Let's get this show on the road." There was an unforeseen issue with Cooper's flight plan. His low flying conditions meant that they wouldn't have enough fuel to get to Mexico City in a direct shot.

They'd need to stop midway for additional fuel. DB considered potential airports along with Captain William Scott. They settled on Reno, Nevada at the Reno Tahoe International Airport. Cooper asked Tina to show him how to operate the aft stairs and then sent her to the cockpit along with the rest of the flight crew. "Please stay behind the curtain until we land," he instructed. That was the last time that anyone saw DB Cooper alive.

Once Flight 305 took off for Reno and reached the altitude Cooper had demanded, the flight crew was notified that the aft door was opened. They glanced at each other but obeyed Cooper's order to remain in the cockpit. However, the captain did radio the passenger cabin to ask DB if he needed assistance. "No," he replied. A few minutes later, there was a change in pressure. Flight 305 flew on, reaching Reno roughly two hours later.

Once on the runway, police took positions near the plane, but did not approach until Captain Scott was able to confirm that D.B. Cooper was gone. And with him? $200,000 in $20 bills, along with one of the parachutes. Part 3: What happened to D.B. Cooper? D.B. Cooper jumped out of Flight 305 as it flew over a dense patch of forest south of Seattle.

It was a wild and mountainous area crisscrossed by waterways and stone cliffs. After Cooper's leap, he seemingly disappeared from the surface of the earth. There were manhunts and tracking teams brought in to no avail. Police officers dredged through miles and miles of dark, west coast wilderness, but couldn't find any sign of the hijacker in the black suit.

Cooper took his briefcase with him when he jumped from the plane. So whether or not he genuinely had a bomb that day is still uncertain. He also took the note that he originally gave Florence, meaning there's no record of his handwriting. However, DB did leave behind one interesting piece of evidence, his clip-on tie, which he'd removed and left on the plane before parachuting out. The FBI launched one of the largest manhunts in history after the hijacking,

The forests in the Pacific Northwest are deep and hidden, sometimes bordering on primordial. But even after decades of searching, D.B. Cooper's trail was never found. The only evidence of his jump was identified in 1980 when an eight-year-old boy stumbled upon $5,800 on the shore of the Columbia River. Officials confirmed that the money was part of the original $200,000 ransom paid to Cooper. What they couldn't explain, though,

was how it got separated from the rest. The bills had deteriorated, but were still held in packs with rubber bands. When analyzed, scientists determined that the money had not fallen into the river at the time of the hijacking, but sometime months or years later. So where was the rest of the money? More importantly, where in the hell was D.B. Cooper?

From the start, the FBI believed that Cooper died either during the jump or soon after landing. It was late November in Washington, and DB parachuted into terrible conditions. The night was overcast with heavy rain and, even at the low altitude he requested, the wind would have been freezing and powerful. Furthermore,

Officials either accidentally or intentionally provided Cooper with one dummy chute, which he took as his reserve. Dummy parachutes are used for training and are sewn shut. Cooper taking the chute with him, along with him not requesting any safety gear, led investigators to believe he was new to skydiving. However, DB was familiar with the aircraft he jumped from and chose it specifically because it was a good platform for a bailout.

Assuming Cooper survived the leap though, that would leave him in the middle of the woods at night during a storm with zero survival gear, food, or supplies. Without shelter or a fire, all of the money Cooper had would be useless, except maybe his Tinder. It's possible that DB had an accomplice waiting down in the forest, but it's extremely unlikely that his jump was precise enough to put him close to a planned location.

In fact, given the weather conditions, it's entirely possible that Cooper parachuted down completely blind with no idea where he would land. If he died under the tall trees far from civilization, his skeleton might still be there in some cave or river clutching the bag containing the money he received. But Cooper was clever. Every part of his plan before the jump displayed this cleverness. The calm way that he analyzed situations and never got rattled.

It seems likely that he would have planned for what came after the moment his shoes left the staircase and he went into free fall. Cooper has an extensive following even today due to all of the mystery surrounding his crime. His fans see him as the perfect gentleman criminal, well-dressed and polite to a fault.

Deeby threatened to kill 40 people on flight 305, but he did it without raising his voice. He paid his bar tab and arranged the meals for the crew during refueling. Cooper was perhaps the friendliest hijacker to ever fly in America. If he did survive the jump and made it out of the woods, where did he go? Who was Dan "Deeby" Cooper? Since the crime in 1971, the FBI has investigated more than 1,000 potential suspects.

Many of the possible Coopers were former military, specifically those with paratrooper experience. But there were also con men like Jack Cofelt, a trans woman named Barbara Dayton, who claimed she presented as a man again for the hijacking to punish the airline, and former Marine and smokejumper Sheridan Peterson.

The most likely suspect, however, was Richard McCoy Jr. McCoy was a former Green Beret and actually hijacked another plane a year after Flight 305 was taken. Just like Cooper, McCoy chose a plane that was a good platform for a jump. He asked for $500,000, successfully bailed out over Utah, but left his fingerprints all over the plane.

McCoy was arrested two days later, sentenced to 45 years in jail, and sent to a penitentiary in Pennsylvania. Two years into his sentence, McCoy was part of a breakout, and soon after died in a shootout with FBI agents in Virginia Beach. Besides McCoy's methods resembling Cooper's M.O.,

He physically looked similar to DB. Even the FBI agent who killed McCoy was quoted as saying, "When I shot Richard McCoy, I shot DB Cooper at the same time." Despite the agent's belief, McCoy was never officially identified as the hijacker DB Cooper. As far as the FBI is concerned, Cooper remains at large.

His methods, personality, and absolute vanishing continue to inspire conspiracy theories and fan groups across the world. Several media outlets have offered rewards for anyone who can turn in one of the $20 bills from the Flight 305 ransom, but so far, none have turned up other than the $5,800 found in 1980 on the riverbank.

Cooper's brazen actions inspired a number of copycat hijackings in the 1970s, leading to more severe security crackdowns at airports than ever before, including an airplane modification for Boeing's name, the Cooper Vane, that prevented the opening of aft stairs during flight. He also directly led to the implementation of stricter processing in airports, metal detectors becoming common, and last-minute flights that are booked in cash being viewed very suspiciously.

Since the hijacking, DB Cooper has become a cultural phenomenon, especially in the Pacific Northwest. Campers continue to search for him in the wide, shadowy forest. Gas stations sell t-shirts with his likeness. He's regarded somewhere between urban legend and folk hero. Whether Cooper died on impact or in the forest, or if he survived and got away, his legacy and style left a lasting impression.

The next time you're holding a $20 bill, be sure to glance at the serial number on the bottom. If it begins with the letter L, it's possible that you're holding a small piece of DB Cooper's lost fortune.