Has the Dan Cooper skyjacking case finally been solved?!

Two weeks after the fortieth anniversary of his dastardly deed, it looks like the mystery of Dan Cooper might have been cracked at last.

And if true, it means that Cooper did survive his crazy stunt after all!

In the image above, you see one Lynn Doyle Cooper on the left and on the right, one of the sketches of Dan Cooper (or "D.B. Cooper" as he was erroneously referred to be by early press reports) made from descriptions given by passengers and crew of Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305: the flight that Cooper hijacked on Thanksgiving 1971.

Marla Cooper, niece of Lynn Doyle Cooper, has come forward to tell the FBI that her uncle arrived at her home on the day after the skyjacking. He was severely injured and claimed that he had been in a car crash.

But what's more, the FBI is apparently close to matching a fingerprint from Lynn Cooper with one found on a cheap clip-on tie that Dan Cooper wore (and left behind) on the plane before the scoundrel bailed out with a parachute and $200,000 into the frigid night of the Pacific Northwest somewhere over the state of Washington.

Lynn Cooper died in 1999. Meaning that if he was Dan Cooper, he got away and was likely laughing about it for almost three decades!

Mash down here for more of this story.

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Fortieth anniversary of Dan Cooper's skyjacking

Forty years ago tonight, a man calling himself Dan Cooper arrived at Portland International Airport and purchased a ticket for Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305: a short flight to Seattle.

Shortly after taking off, "Cooper" passed a note to the stewardess: "I have a bomb in my briefcase. I will use it if necessary. I want you to sit next to me. You are being hijacked."

So began the tale of what has become one of the most brazen and legendary (some have even said heroic) crimes in American history...

Cooper (often referred to as "D.B. Cooper") showed what he purported to be a bomb (some red cylinders in his briefcase that later turned out to be harmless), demanded $200,000 in unmarked bills, and four parachutes: two loaded in the front of the plane and two in the back. After the plane landed at Seattle-Tacoma the demands were met and the Boeing 727 took off again.

At around 8 p.m. Cooper bailed out of the rear of the plane, holding onto his newly acquired satchel of cash. Along with the parachute he wore the business suit he wore when he boarded the plane: seemingly no protection at all against the elements, but Cooper by all accounts was cool and confident nonetheless.

Hurtling himself into pitch black night with freezing rain and driving wind, Cooper was never seen again.

Here's the Wikipedia entry about Dan Cooper, where you can find out much more regarding his infamous skyjacking along with the various theories that have cropped up over the past four decades.

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Raoul Wallenberg and Dan Cooper: New clues in two massive mysteries

Sixty-six years after he disappeared into the prisons of the Soviet Union, new information has been discovered about the fate of Raoul Wallenberg.

Raoul Wallenberg was a Swedish diplomat who became one of the most revered heroes of World War II. At the height of the Holocaust, Wallenberg was able to rescue and shelter tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews who would have otherwise been dispatched to the concentration camps. When the Soviets liberated Budapest early in 1945, Wallenberg was taken into custody by the Russians on suspicion of being a spy for the United States. His fate remains unknown to this day. The Soviets reported two years later that Wallenberg had died in his cell... but there are reports that he was seen alive as late as 1987.

Now two researchers who have studied the case for decades have announced that they have discovered old Soviet files pertaining to Raoul Wallenberg: files which the Russian government has long claimed did not exist.

Meanwhile, there may (or may not) be new developments in the mystery of one of the most celebrated criminals in American history...

It was Thanksgiving eve
Back in 1971
He had on a pair of sunglasses
There wasn't any sun
He used the name Dan Cooper
When he paid for the flight
That was going to Seattle
On that cold and nasty night

-- from "The Ballad of D.B. Cooper"
by Chuck Brodsky

This coming November will mark the fortieth anniversary of Dan Cooper's daring skyjacking of that Boeing 727 between Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington. It was on the night before Thanksgiving in 1971 that a man calling himself "Dan Cooper" (often erroneously reported to be "D.B. Cooper") boarded the Northwest Orient Airlines flight, then claimed in mid-flight to have had a bomb. Upon landing Cooper demanded several parachutes and $200,000 in unmarked bills. The plane took off again and somewhere over the northwestern wilderness Cooper, laden with a parachute and the cash, jumped out of the plane into freezing rain and American legend. He was never seen again.

And now a woman has come forward with apparent evidence that Dan Cooper was her uncle. Federal investigators are looking into it.

The Dan Cooper mystery is something that I have been following since I was nine years old. Every few years it seems that there is a new development in the case. Personally, this is one mystery that I'd just as well prefer to see forever unsolved. Cooper never actually hurt anyone and his stunt... well, that took some serious brass ones to even conceive the plan for, never mind that he actually pulled it off, seemingly. Yeah he broke the law bigtime, but there aren't too many scoundrels that it can honestly be said were "heroic" in their misdeeds.

Dan Cooper... or whatever his real name might be... is one of them :-)

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Parachute is NOT Cooper's, says FBI

Remember that parachute that was found in the state of Washington last week, that many were speculating might have belonged to notorious skyjacker Dan Cooper (more often known as D.B. Cooper, but I've always called him by the name he used for his ticket)? The discovery aroused a lot of memories about the guy and spawned even more theories about what might have happened to him. Now the FBI is saying that the parachute is NOT Cooper's. It's not the right material or design, and the feds are now saying that it was from a military plane crash in 1945 and that the 1946 date stamped on the 'chute is the "repacking date".

So the question is raised anew: What did happen to the parachute that Cooper used in his 1971 caper?

I will admit: I'm kinda glad that last week's find is not Cooper's, because it just means that the real parachute hasn't been found. And maybe that's because Cooper did survive the fall and is still out there somewhere.

As a friend likes to put it, "Mystery!"

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Has Dan Cooper's parachute been found?

It was Thanksgiving eve
Back in 1971
He had on a pair of sunglasses
There wasn't any sun
He used the name Dan Cooper
When he paid for the flight
That was going to Seattle
On that cold and nasty night

-- "The Ballad of D.B. Cooper"
by Chuck Brodsky

More than 36 years after Dan Cooper bailed out of the back of a 727 into stormy night and American folklore, a parachute has been found in Washington state that the FBI is speculating could have been used by the legendary skyjacker.

It was on the night before Thanksgiving in 1971 that a man calling himself "Dan Cooper" (more often erroneously called "D.B. Cooper") boarded a Northwest Orient flight in Portland, Oregon bound for Seattle. Shortly after takeoff Cooper told a stewardess that he had a bomb, and gave instructions to have $200,000 in unmarked bills and four parachutes ready upon landing: two loaded in the front of the plane and two in the rear. The demands were met, Cooper allowed the passengers to leave and then the 727 took off again, this time headed south. About a half-hour into the flight, Cooper went to the back of the plane and was never seen again. He took the money and one of the parachutes and jumped out of the plane via the aft stairs.

Ever since that night, there have been all kinds of theories and rumors about what happened to Dan Cooper. In 1978 a 727 placard describing how to lower the rear stairs was found in the Washington woods by a hunter, and a few years about $6,000 from Cooper's haul (the serial numbers matched those of bills that were given to Cooper) was discovered on the banks of the Columbia River near Vancouver.

Some believe that given the fierce wind, heavy rain and freezing temperature along with how Cooper was described as wearing normal clothes that would not have provided much protection from the elements, the general consensus of law agencies is that Cooper did not survive his jump and that his skeleton is still laying around somewhere deep in the forests of the Northwest. And then there are others who believe that he not only did survive his caper/stunt, but that he took the money and went on a lavish spree. The story I've heard over the years is that Cooper had someone (usually a girlfriend) waiting for him, and they wound up blowing the wad at the casinos in Las Vegas.

Personally, I think Cooper made it all the way down alive. And if this parachute was his, then the following detail from the story certainly indicates that he survived the fall...

Children playing outside their home near Amboy found the chute's fabric sticking up from the ground in an area where their father had been grading a road, agent Larry Carr said. They pulled it out as far as they could, then cut the parachute's ropes with scissors.

Sounds like someone didn't want that parachute to be found. And whoever it was, they were alive long enough to bury it.

I've been a Dan Cooper buff ever since I was nine years old. This is one story that I'm certainly going to be keeping my eye on.

(And along with the radioactive cat story, this is the second post in a row pertaining to the Seattle area. Pretty weird, huh?)

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