The man's name on the plane's manifest was Dan Cooper. There was also a male passenger already on board named Michael Cooper, traveling from Missoula, Montana to Seattle. (The press was later credited with identifying the middle-aged man as "D.B. Cooper" and that identifier has remained in most accounts since that time.)
D.B. Cooper gained sudden notoriety as the perpetrator of the FBI's only major unsolved "skyjacking." He became the first and only "successful " parachuting skyjacker in American history, successful in that he disappeared with $200,000 in ransom money. His deed led to elaborate airport security systems and to redesign of the Boeing 727 jetliner so the rear door could not be opened in flight. (Obviously, the redesign was flawed, as shown by newspaper reports 24 years later ).
There were 35 other passengers on Flight 305 out of Portland for a 175-mile flight-a short hop for a 727 jet. The plane got a late start and finally lifted off the runway at 4:45 P.M.. When the plane reached cruising altitude, "Dan Cooper," sitting in an aisle seat toward the rear of the plane, gave a stewardess a note and quietly said to her, "Read that." She was stunned, but she was careful not to let passengers see any reaction. She showed the note to another stewardess, who was equally shocked, but who also remained quiet, not visibly shaken by what she had read. The first stewardess was reported to have delivered an oral amount of the message to the aircraft captain.
Accounts are blurred as to what actually happened to the note itself. One version, given much later, by a freelance writer (Richard T. Tosaw, former FBI special agent who became a finder of missing heirs) published in Parachutist Magazine (the official publication of the United States Parachute Association) reported that the note stated: "I HAVE A BOMB IN MY BRIEFCASE. I WILL USE IT IF NECESSARY. I WANT YOU TO SIT BESIDE ME. YOU ARE BEING HIJACKED." A newspaper story some time after the event said that the first stewardess who was shown the note was also shown the inside of the man's briefcase, in which she saw what she thought was a bomb.
However, the actual wording of the note remains a mystery. A book published in 1985 ("D.B. Cooper: What Really Happened" by Max Gunther; Contemporary Books Inc., Chicago) cited that the note "was neatly hand-printed in ink. Its precise wording is lost to history, for the business-suited man [the hijacker] reclaimed it." The book author (a former editor for Business Week, Time, and True magazines) went on to write that two stewardesses remembered "its gist with stark clarity." Gunther noted, "It said that the man had a bomb in his case. He wanted $200,000 in twenty dollar bills and four parachutes to be delivered to him when the plane landed in Seattle. If his demands were not satisfied, he intended to blow up the airplane. "
Gunther went on to describe what happened when the pilot came back to the middle-aged man's seat to see if the matter was a hoax. Moving into a seat next to the skyjacker, who had moved over to a window seat, the captain quietly asked: "What's this about a bomb?"
"The man opened the case and closed it again quickly. In that brief glimpse, [the captain] saw two red cylinders and a jumble of wires. " Persuaded by what he had seen, the captain reported to the flight deck and radioed SEA-TAC Airport.
D.B. Cooper ordered that the 727 was to circle SEA-TAC until the money and the four parachutes were ready to be delivered to him. Northwest's president was reached at home in Minneapolis and made a quick decision: "Do whatever the man demands.':
The hijacker's demands were met when the plane landed in Seattle. Harried airline officials and FBI agents had to hustle to acquire what the skyjacker demanded and have it ready for him in less than an hour.
The parachute types specified by D.B. Cooper, according to author Gunther, were acquired from a sport parachute center in Issaquah, Washington-two standard emergency back-type and two chest-type auxiliary parachutes (the latter generally termed reserve chutes, for back-up emergency use if the main chute should malfunction when a sport parachutist was making a jump). The parachute center in Issaquah provided the two chest packs and Earl Cossey, a parachuting instructor at the Issaquah drop zone as well as an FAA Master Parachute Rigger, contacted at his nearby home, brought two back-type rigs from his parachute workshop there and delivered them to the parachute school. (The types and number of parachutes asked for by D.B. Cooper led to early speculation that the skyjacker might have freefall parachuting experience and that he might have an accomplice.)
The FBI prepared the ten thousand $20 bills that made up the $200,000 demanded. To identify the money, all the bills were photographed with a high-speed Recordak machine to create a microfilm later to be used to prepare a list of serial numbers.
Everything the skyjacker wanted was ready at the airport when the airport tower radioed the plane at 5:24 P.M.. -"We're ready down here.': Flight 305 touched down sixteen minutes later, at 5:40.
With money and parachutes on board, all passengers and two of three stewardesses were freed. The hijacker ordered the plane to be flown to Mexico. Following the hijacker's instructions, the 727 was fully refueled for a southbound flight and a refueling stop in Reno, Nevada, after which the plane would head across the U.S.-Mexico international border. The hijacker made no demands about the route to be flown. Instead, he gave the pilot instructions to fly with landing gear down, flaps set at 15-degrees, not exceed speed of 150 knots (172.5 mph), and not to fly above 10,000 feet altitude. The stewardess and three flight deck members were not to leave the crew compartment. As the stewardess closed the door she saw the man strapping a canvas sack about his waist. The man later known as D.B. Cooper was then alone in the large passenger compartment.
About 8 o'clock the flight engineer saw a red "door open" warning light appear on his array of flight instruments. No specific door was indicated but the flight crew suspected it was for the passenger stairs in the aft section, beneath the plane's tail assembly and the rear-mounted engine. The 727 was the only plane to have such passenger access. At 8:10 PM., 24 minutes into the flight south, the 727 crossed the Lewis River in southeast Washington, about 25 miles north of Portland. Author Gunther wrote: "Passing over the river, the plane performed an odd little curtsy and needed to be trimmed to bring it back to level flight." When the plane landed in Reno, D.B. Cooper was gone. So was the money and two parachutes. Nothing has never been ascertained about what happened to the man who commandeered the 727.
Over the course of eighteen days after D.B. Cooper disappeared from the airplane a force of 200 soldiers from Fort Lewis Washington tramped across a ten-square-mile area in an intensive search of the rugged forested area over which it was calculated the skyjacker had bailed out of the 727. But there are also scattered farms on lower land areas, which would have made ideal landing areas. The FBI had used a computer to pinpoint his exit point as being over Lake Merwin, which was formed by damming the Lewis River.
But no sign of the hijacker's body was found, nor any clue as to what happened to him- no parachute or parts, no clothing, no money.
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