Who Was D.B. Cooper?

By Mark Swarbrick

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Who was D.B. Cooper? On November 24, 1971, a quiet, middle-aged man hijacked Northwest Orient Flight 305, demanded $200,000 and four parachutes, and then jumped from the rear stairs of a Boeing 727 into the darkness over Washington State. He was never seen again, and despite one of the most extensive manhunts in FBI history, the mysterious hijacker was never officially identified or captured.

The standard explanation is that Cooper probably died during the jump, which conveniently explains why the FBI never caught him. But there are serious reasons to question that conclusion. Cooper demonstrated considerable knowledge of parachuting and airline operations, and the area where he likely landed was far more survivable than the remote, mountainous wilderness often portrayed in accounts of the case. No body was ever found, and evidence suggests that D.B. Cooper may very well have survived and successfully escaped.

But that raises another question: If Cooper survived, why was he never caught? Evidence has come to light that suggests perhaps powerful forces in the airline industry and within the FBI did not want the man caught. Cooper displayed knowledge suggesting an unusual familiarity with Northwest Orient Airlines itself, yet the possibility that the hijacker was an airline insider was never meaningfully pursued.

There are other strange pieces to the puzzle, including evidence that points toward a particular suspect and eyewitness testimony concerning what may have been preparations for the hijacking shortly before it occurred. More than fifty years later, people are still asking what happened to D.B. Cooper and who he really was. Perhaps the greatest D.B. Cooper mystery is not simply his identity, but whether the evidence identifying him was there all along, and why one of America’s most famous fugitives was never brought to justice.

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