It’s nothing more than a wild goose chase but there are men who spent their entire lives in the pursuit of the unattainable – because they believe.
The thing that is fascinating about the story is that that D B Cooper gave very detailed flying instructions to the pilot, alluding to the fact that he most likley was a pilot him self, but also that he chose to parachute out of the plane at a point where it would be difficult to make a safe landing for most parachuters. that and the fact that if he managed to survive the jump, apperantly didn't go on a spending spree at any time, which is what most robbers eventually will get cought by.
DB Cooper wasn't he's name Despite a very detailed hijack and flight instructions given to the flight crew "DB Cooper" made a jump into a pitch black night in the middle of a storm at freezing temperatures onto mountainous terrain, with no helmet, wearing a trench coat and soft shoes. No Money from the ransom was ever know to have been spent. He's got to have died, hasn't he.....? But what happened to the money? Unless he didn't actually jump at the spot the doors opened and jumped later at a better location with an accomplice waiting. But what happened to the money? Nobody matching he's description was ever reported missing...?
The FBI believes he didn’t survive the jump. How would they know, well first it would explain why none of the money surfaced until a small portion was found in 1980 by an 8 year old boy, and secondly because they rigged the parachute in such a manner that it wouldn’t deploy. If this Dan Cooper had paratrooper training as some investigators have speculated, he would have been likely singing this tune on the way down "Beautiful streamer open for me. Blue Skies above and no canopy. Counted nine thousand - waited too long. Reached for my ripcord - the darn thing was gone"
I'm tempted to belive the same thing. I was not aware of this I must admit. That is another thing that confuses me about the whole thing, if he was an experienced paratrooper, then I seriously doubt he would have jumped where he did in the first place, but even if he did do that, then it seems highly unlikely that he would rely on a chute that had been packed and prepped by anyone other than him self, and if where to do that then he would have definatley checked everything was alright before jumping. There is something inside me that can't help but to belive that this was a plot made from the begining just to create a mystery, and that D B Cooper never intended to survive the whole thing, kind of a mix of being suicidal and saying fuck you to the authorities at the same time.
Good choice, good movie. On Oak Island if they discover a shard of twisted metal, or wooden boards that someone tossed away years ago, it’s a clue that will eventually solve the case, or while drilling they happen upon a void in the bedrock, well there must be a secret hidden chamber below, because, hey, what else could it be? ...lol..
Witnesses agree that he was a guy. I'm sure he was in a hurry... Probably forgot where he set the money down...like car keys or his glasses.
There were a number of copycats, I'm not sure of the exact number but I believe it was nine. One man upon parachuting from a 727 at an altitude of 8,000 feet (2,000 feet less than Cooper) lost the duffel bag filled with 500,000 dollars in cash. He secured the bag with a tether but it managed to come loose. He actually survived the jump but was tracked down by the FBI 3 days later. Injured and despondent without his getaway money, he just waited for the authorities to arrive.
Just thinking of the way I feel when I find that i have lost a few bucks from my pocket, I can't imagine how that guy felt. Then again, it wasn't his money to begin with.
True, but In 1971 the man was described in his early to mid-forties. So even if he did manage to survive the jump he would currently be in his early to mid-nineties.
It's an old thread that begins with a link to a NYT article from 2011. The article does not mention Robert Rackstraw. Not proven to have been the one who paid $20 in cash to purchase that Northwest Orient ticket in the name of "Dan Cooper" in 1971, he can't be ruled out either. We'll likely never know who it was. The FBI officially suspended its active investigation in the case in July 2016, having compiled a 60-volume case file over 45 years. Rackstraw checks several boxes for citizen sleuths interested in the case, but he never admitted being D.B. Cooper, and no definitive physical evidence or compelling witness statement ties him to the crime. Robert Wesley Rackstraw died in San Diego in July 2019 at the age of 75. A mug shot of Rackstraw from one of his arrests in the 1970s. 1972 FBI sketch of D.B. Cooper. Rackstraw is one of several suspects profiled in Wikipedia's "D.B. Cooper" entry. The whole thing is worth a reading. Another of the 1,000 or so potential suspects identified by the FBI was Richard Floyd McCoy, Jr. He also checks some boxes, but because McCoy committed a similar act of air piracy in 1972, was convicted of that later crime, and died in a shootout with Federal agents in 1974 after escaping from prison, if the FBI could identify McCoy as having committed the D.B. Cooper crime in 1971, they wouldn't have continued to investigate the 1971 crime for decades. I consider Rackstraw more compelling than McCoy, but that's not saying much. As far as the statute of limitations goes, a "John Doe a/k/a Dan Cooper" indictment in absentia in November 1976 should provide the basis for prosecution if he isn't already dead and if there is ever sufficient evidence of his identity. I remember the skyjacking and the search for D.B. Cooper in the news at the time it happened. I haven't really followed it since then, but it's an interesting mystery.
