On This Day – November 24

D. B. Cooper is the name used to refer to an unidentified man who hijacked a Boeing 727 aircraft in the northwest United States, in the airspace between Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington, on the afternoon of Wednesday, November 24th 1971.

He extorted $200,000 in ransom (equivalent to $1,210,000 today) and parachuted from the plane – to an uncertain fate.

Despite an extensive manhunt and protracted FBI investigation, the perpetrator has never been located or identified. It remains the only unsolved case of air piracy in commercial aviation history.

Available evidence and a preponderance of expert opinion suggested from the beginning that Cooper probably did not survive his high-risk jump, but his remains were never recovered. The FBI nevertheless maintained an active investigation for 45 years after the hijacking. Despite a case file that grew to over 60 volumes over that period, no definitive conclusions have been reached regarding Cooper's true identity or whereabouts if he survived the jump.

The suspect purchased his airline ticket using the alias Dan Cooper, but because of a news media miscommunication he became known in popular lore as "D. B. Cooper".

Numerous theories of widely varying plausibility have been proposed over the years by investigators, reporters, and amateur enthusiasts.

In February 1980 a young boy discovered a small cache of ransom bills along the banks of the Columbia River. The find triggered renewed interest but ultimately only deepened the mystery, and the great majority of the ransom remains unrecovered.

The FBI officially suspended active investigation of the case in July 2016, but the agency continues to request that any physical evidence that might emerge related to the parachutes or the ransom money be submitted for analysis.

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