Unsolved D.B. Cooper

[grizzlym]

There is no way. The plane would have been under constant guard, until agents had combed every square cm of it for anything that could bring them closer to the suspect. So the suggestion that Cooper could have just stashed himself under a seat, or in an overhead locker and then wandered off after their backs were turned, is laughable. Part of what made his jump so dangerous was what also gave him a great advantage in avoiding detection from tailing planes: A very dark stormy night, in driving rain. They were also tailing him in fighter jets, which were practically useless in the slow speeds that he ordered 727 to fly.



Not saying Lynn Doyle Cooper isn't an extremely viable suspect, but I don't think he's any more or less of a standout (yet) than a number of others. It's never a good sign when words like 'solved' and 'matching' are in quotation marks.

Seems an obvious thing to say, but if there was enough evidence to close the case they would have. And they would love to as well. It seems with all the high-profile cases a promising lead comes up every few years that will close the case.

 

[MC Extra Dollop]

Seems an obvious thing to say, but if there was enough evidence to close the case they would have. And they would love to as well. It seems with all the high-profile cases a promising lead comes up every few years that will close the case.

Ideally, I think they'd like to close the case with a suspect who didn't survive the jump. Personally, I think it could be argued that the FBI would much prefer the so-called 'splatter theory' than the embarrassment of their suspect successfully getting away (with or without the money).

 

[bunsen burner]

Well I'm sold, I'm going to video library right now and renting Without a Paddle. Sounds even sicker than Up the Creek.

 

[The Prosecutor]

A truly fascinating case.

It's times like these you'd just love to have top security clearance in the US for a day.

 

[Jab]

I'm pushed for time today, but I remember Chael Sonnen (UFC fighter) talking to Joe Rogan on his podcast about this case. I'm sketchy for the details, but Chael, who is based out of West Lynn, Oregon, believes the DB Cooper case and says that the guy is still alive and lives around there.

I know that Chael has said some crazy stuff to do with UFC or promoting a fight, but he seemed pretty genuine on the things that he was saying. I hope that I can find it later and I'll post it up.

 

[Bunk Moreland]

Great case. So hard to know what happened. All I know is that with such a brilliant plan, the planning can't have ended with him in the middle of nowhere, in poor weather, with a huge bundle of cash and parachuting gear, and having to find his way home. He simply must have either planted a vehicle, or had someone waiting to meet him.

I reckon he pulled it off. Just think if he hadn't, some evidence would have shown up . A body, his chute gear, a waiting car, person/s who were meant to meet him in the area acting suspiciously.

Other thought is if this could be some kind of conspiracy involving members of the crew. Just something is suspicious here. A member of the crew posing as a hijacker if required in front of the passengers? Then slipping back into crew guise and exiting with the rest? What actual evidence is there that this guy existed?

 

[MC Extra Dollop]

Great case. So hard to know what happened. All I know is that with such a brilliant plan, the planning can't have ended with him in the middle of nowhere, in poor weather, with a huge bundle of cash and parachuting gear, and having to find his way home. He simply must have either planted a vehicle, or had someone waiting to meet him.

The issue with that is that a compromise for the flight path to Reno had to be made, as Cooper's preferred path, at the altitude he wanted to make his jump, would have put the plane on a collision course with several of the Rocky Mountains. So I'd argue the opposite; that there's no way anyone would have been able to meet him.

http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/criminal_mind/scams/DB_Cooper/8.html

According to a scenario favored by the mountain-dwellers of the jump region, Cooper hid his chute in an animal den or beneath a forest rock ledge, hiked to a planned rendezvous with an accomplice and hightailed it to Mexico, where he spent his loot, one bottle of tequila at a time. And what of the cash in the river? They say he may have paused at a Columbia bridge to toss in a few bundles, just to confound the cops.

That theory has several faults. Cooper was wearing street shoes that would have blown off in his skydive. If he hiked, he hiked with bare feet. Also, he was rather nonchalant about the precise line of the flight path from Seattle to Reno, accepting Capt. Scott's suggestion of the low-altitude route, Vector-23. A planned rendezvous with an accomplice would have required a dive at a pinpointed location.

I haven't really seen the 'inside job' angle explored in any of the pieces I've read (of course that doesn't mean it hasn't been looked at thoroughly). It's would be a brilliant twist, with one problem I can see being that so many passengers saw him, along with the crew who remained on the flight to Reno. So the FBI would have known how many crew should have been on board when they touched down and they would have all been people that couldn't have been in Cooper's seat on the initial flight. It could have been an employee, but it would have been an employee who had no business being on that flight when it touched down in Reno.

 

[flight23]

is there a good doco of this that goes through it?

really interested

 

[Lockyer24]

I went and got an episode of a show called 'Decoded' where they try and solve it

It wasn't great

 

[Bunk Moreland]

OK here's my official crackpot theory (I hate conspiracy theroies in general)

• Cooper never existed
• was an elaborate hoax planned and played out by a group of disgruntled / greedy employees
• male member of the flight crew dressed as a civilian and acted out initial exchange with flight attendant (if this was even required, did the passengers even know what was happening at the time? They were apparently simply told there was mechanical difficulties)
• demands are made and met. Passengers are released. Flight team get back in the air with "Cooper" and fly "toward Reno".
• as per plan, the crew toss out a small amount of the cash plus two of the parachutes in order to throw off the scent.
• flight lands, cash is concealed on various people / in baggage. Crew are questioned and released. Cash was divided up - spent in small amounts, or washed in small individual amounts to avoid detection.

I base this on:

1. nobody seems to have seen this "Cooper" character apart from the flight crew. All physical descriptions seem to have come from them. After the inital exchange, he decided to throw his sunglasses on
2. requests for a face to face meeting with ground staff were denied
3. "Cooper" had absolutely impeccable and thorough knowledge of the aircraft and how various equipment worked
4. "Cooper" however doesn't seem to know anything about skydiving. He supposedly makes a tremendously dangerous jump, in shocking weather, into unknown terrain. Making the worst and most unsafe choice when it came to the available parachutes.
5. 20 or so more people tried similar hijackings in the coming years, not one of which was ultimately succesful. What are the odds?
6. The prospect of surviving the jump and then getting out without help (which he couldn't have conceivably had) are completely unrealistic. Despite this, no body has ever been found.
7. this whole character and his supposed dealings with the flight crew. He doesn't fit any appropriate profile. He's some smooth, friendly, polite, James Bond-style character that seems to come straight off a movie script... like he was just a figment of somebody's imagination. The whole thing went off like crime does in the movies - smoothly, stylishly, and with no innocent victims.

 

[MC Extra Dollop]

OK here's my official crackpot theory (I hate conspiracy theroies in general)

Hey, I like it. I'll re-read the Crime Library story over with this in mind, put it that way.

A few initial issues:

• It makes sense for the physical descriptions to come from the flight attendants. They spent time talking to him and observed him. Doesn't really prove or disprove your theory I guess, but surely the FBI and the airline would have been interested in hearing other accounts, rather than just the crew's, to eliminate the 'inside job' theory.
• He seemed to understand some nuances of the 727 and planned the hijack specifically because it would allow this type of jump from the aft stairs. (As the story goes) he needed one of the flight attendants to give him a sign demonstrating how to open the stairs (apparently, this just involved pulling a lever). Cooper wanted them to take off with the aft stairs open, but was talked into manually opening them in flight. The sign was one of the only pieces of evidence ever recovered. Of course, going by the inside job theory, this could have been staged.
• I don't think it's fair to say that he knew nothing about skydiving, just that he wasn't like a paratrooper or anything. Not that I know anything about skdiving, but I reckon a guy who made, say, five jumps in his life could have made the same mistake.
• The list of successful jumps depends on what you consider successful. With regards to jumping out of the plane and hitting terra firma, he wasn't the only one to manage that. Others were unsuccessful for other reasons: they couldn't keep their mouths shut; one left his own car at a designated drop point where FBI agents were waiting for him when he made the hike to pick it up, one was tipped off by a taxi driver, who picked him up still in his jumpsuit and carrying a duffel bag (he also had told a friend how easily it could be done), one who was a native of Honduras, surrended there because bounty hunters were after him etc.
• Don't know enough about the odds of surviving the jump and getting to a safe location to really comment one way or the other. It doesn't seem that implausible to me.
• But probably the biggest one...I'm almost positive that airline crews are always selected randomly for their flights; that they've got no idea whom they're working with from flight to flight. It would have made it impossible to plan.

 

[DrVanNostrand]

Wow, never heard the inside job theory before. Mind blown. Likes all 'round Has the airline ticket with the name 'Dan Cooper' ever surfaced? Any records of anyone buying the ticket on the airline's database? How were plane ticket records kept in those days? One problem I have with this theory is that none of the money was ever used in circulation ever again.

Such a fascinating case. Polite gentleman, non-violent, excellent negotiator, vanishes without a trace. I firmly believe the $5,800 found is nowhere near his landing/escape point, and that he acted alone. He also had no survival equipment with him. I find it hard to believe he made it out of the mountains alive. Although the photo of this Lynn Doyle Cooper does bear a likeness.

Jab, I'd love to see that video.

 

[Ed_Gein]

I think he made it out he would of made it out alive. He would of had to have been a native of the Portland area and considering there was money found washed up in the river suggests to me he would have only needed to follow it to find his way back to Portland (whether it was Lake Merwin or Washougal River) so i think he would have been familar as to where he was when he landed. Not sure how else a wad of cash would have ended up on a river bank.

The idea of it being an inside job seems really plausible, just because there is next to 0 information about who he was or where he was from. I would love to know more about the plane ticket purchase. What sort of ID was required to buy it as well as what other sort of security check was there behind the whole process before boarding? Could it have been easy enough for the flight staff to just print off a ticket under any old name like 'Dan Cooper' to create an identity for the hijacking?

 

[exe ex machina]

The problem with inside job is that part of the money was found close to his skydiving landing spot. Means someone landed.

 

[MC Extra Dollop]

The problem with inside job is that part of the money was found close to his skydiving landing spot. Means someone landed.

I also wonder what the odds are of no-one from Northwest Airlines recognising him or having suspicions that it was one of their own. Kenneth Christiansen is considered one of the best suspects; he was a purser for Northwest and a former paratrooper, who bears a pretty good likeness to Cooper (http://nymag.com/news/features/39593/). It is considered that if Christiansen did it, he worked alone. My main problem with that theory is would an active employee (he was still working with the airline for a few years after the hijacking) really have tried this without anything more than a pair of sunglasses to disguise himself and hope that none of the flight crew knew him? Doesn't seem plausible to me.

To my mind, it seems far more reasonable to suspect someone who had similar credentials to Christiansen for a rival airline was the culprit, otherwise, I can't imagine he wouldn't have done more to disguise himself.

 

[exe ex machina]

Not in touch with all the details of various theories but some more random thoughts....

Don't think it's possible he remained on plane either as a passenger or crew member. Authorities would have the log of crew for the flight. Prior to lift off and after landing the same number of crew and all names accounted for.

Likewise for passengers....one person missing on landing.

I find it hard to believe the hijacker was actually someone named cooper regardless of first name. I'm referring to the story the woman said of her uncle or whomever also named cooper who the fbi eventually reckons was the real one and want to close the case. At the time there would've been records of all Coopers enough to track them all down, trace their movements, match descriptions, hospital records of recent injuries, etc. Would've been found and arrested not too long after.

Instead the person wanting to pull off this feat and not get caught would clearly use a fake name, everything else was so carefully planned to avoid detection, and managed to do so for 40 years, obviously very clever and remained anonymous, never telling anyone or leaving anything traceable to a real identity. So imo any suspect not named cooper is probably worth investigating further.

 

[Bunk Moreland]

Hey, I like it. I'll re-read the Crime Library story over with this in mind, put it that way.

A few initial issues:

• It makes sense for the physical descriptions to come from the flight attendants. They spent time talking to him and observed him. Doesn't really prove or disprove your theory I guess, but surely the FBI and the airline would have been interested in hearing other accounts, rather than just the crew's, to eliminate the 'inside job' theory.
• He seemed to understand some nuances of the 727 and planned the hijack specifically because it would allow this type of jump from the aft stairs. (As the story goes) he needed one of the flight attendants to give him a sign demonstrating how to open the stairs (apparently, this just involved pulling a lever). Cooper wanted them to take off with the aft stairs open, but was talked into manually opening them in flight. The sign was one of the only pieces of evidence ever recovered. Of course, going by the inside job theory, this could have been staged.
• I don't think it's fair to say that he knew nothing about skydiving, just that he wasn't like a paratrooper or anything. Not that I know anything about skdiving, but I reckon a guy who made, say, five jumps in his life could have made the same mistake.
• The list of successful jumps depends on what you consider successful. With regards to jumping out of the plane and hitting terra firma, he wasn't the only one to manage that. Others were unsuccessful for other reasons: they couldn't keep their mouths shut; one left his own car at a designated drop point where FBI agents were waiting for him when he made the hike to pick it up, one was tipped off by a taxi driver, who picked him up still in his jumpsuit and carrying a duffel bag (he also had told a friend how easily it could be done), one who was a native of Honduras, surrended there because bounty hunters were after him etc.
• Don't know enough about the odds of surviving the jump and getting to a safe location to really comment one way or the other. It doesn't seem that implausible to me.
• But probably the biggest one...I'm almost positive that airline crews are always selected randomly for their flights; that they've got no idea whom they're working with from flight to flight. It would have made it impossible to plan.

Yeah, all fair points. I guess when I first read it, my thoughts ran straight to the airline and its employees – it just seemed involve somebody who had good knowledge of the aircraft and its workings.

With that in mind, I’m trying to look at it in terms of what we actually know (excluding what flight staff may have testified):

• The plane landed, hostage demands were met, passengers and some staff were released, other staff were not (those required to fly the plane – although one flight attendant remained on board).
• $200k in cash and 4 parachutes went on board the plane
• All the cash and two of the parachutes left the plane before it was searched in Reno.
• A small amount of the cash only was later recovered from under the flight path

As far as I can see, that’s all we really know. It depends greatly on what direct contact those on the ground had with this Cooper character – did he speak directly with people, or through an intermediary on the flight crew?

I can’t see why there wasn’t direct fingerprints found (just seems to be just a whole heap of different ones taken from the plane). Why wasn’t there direct fingerprints from his bourbon glass, or anywhere on the aft stairs?

In terms of other people getting away with similar heists, by successful I mean there’s no other unsolved cases. Everyone else who tried this was either injured, killed (body recovered) or caught at some stage. That leads me to think the odds of pulling something like this off are pretty low (though not impossible).

I don’t think the flight crew organising to work together is that much of a stretch. The airline industry and flying in general seems to have been extremely informal in those days (relative to what it is now).

I know the whole theory sounds somewhat absurd, but if I think about the “official” version of what happened, it just seems like that version requires just as much (if not more) imagination and justification of implausible factors. He somehow landed safely (improbable), was able to dispose of and hide his parachute to the extent that it’s never been found (how?), then escape on foot through rough terrain (how?) and avoid detection. Every time I’ve seen a good question asked, people just come up with ways for how he could have possibly achieved things, no matter how implausible. In this context, the “official” version almost starts to sound like a conspiracy theory itself.

The biggest hurdle is every staff member on the plane would have had to have been in on it, if a member of staff was actually required to pose as a hijacker in front of the passengers (though I’m still not sure how much the passengers knew of what was going on).

I dunno... just always think if it’s too good to be true, it usually is. People don’t literally disappear into thin air.

 

[Jab]

Jab, I'd love to see that video.

I found it. 2 hours and 3 minutes in, Sonnen starts with, "I know who DB cooper is"

 

[DrVanNostrand]

I didn't realise until reading up today that the estimated landing area was searched extensively the very next day, and for the next few days. Seeing as the money was not found for 9 years a fair distance away from the search area, and being such a stormy night, it was probably near impossible to accurately estimate a specific area he could have ended up.

I don't think it's a coincidence this is the same area our mate bigfoot(y) frequents. How else could the bigfoot on the Simpsons have bought that nice watch? But seriously, could human remains (and the rest of the cash) completely vanish if consumed by a bear or something?

 

[Milang_Panthers]

does anyone know what $200,000 in 1971 would be worth today?

 

[exe ex machina]

$1M

 

[Ghostwriter]

Just one question, how did he exit the plane, aren't they pressurised, wouldn't the innards of the plane be sucked out as well?

 

[flight23]

not sure what the deal is with bringing up similar cases, but this dude is my all time favorite and is quite similar in many ways

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Spaggiari

its in french, but here's his interview with full disguise and all

 

[Bunk Moreland]

Just one question, how did he exit the plane, aren't they pressurised, wouldn't the innards of the plane be sucked out as well?

The plane was flown at low speed and low altitude, and the cabin was not pressurised.

 

[Bunk Moreland]

Just did some more reading and looked at some photos. I'm convinced it was McCoy. He looked a fair bit like the identikit and the crimes are very similar.