LOS ANGELES — D.B. Cooper, the infamous airplane hijacker who parachuted out of a jetliner over the Pacific Northwest with a $200,000 ransom, is back on the FBI’s radar screen.
Cooper, whose case remains the only unsolved airline hijacking in U.S. history, became the stuff of legend on the night of Nov. 24, 1971, when he jumped from a Boeing 727. He disappeared with 10,000 $20 bills.
The case has remained open, but the trail has been cold despite hundreds of tips, theories and breakthroughs in scientific investigation.
Now the FBI, which has previously said that Cooper is likely dead, is looking at fresh evidence. The FBI’s recent tip in the case was first reported by the Telegraph newspaper in London, a testament to Cooper’s international appeal.
The FBI is investigating a man who died about 10 years ago, a spokesman told The Seattle Times on Monday.
Special Agent Fred Gutt said the bureau’s Seattle office has been investigating for more than a year a lead that has “more credibility and detail” than other tips regarding the unsolved skyjacking. Gutt declined to identify the man, who died of natural causes.
Story “seems logical”
“There is a basic story that seems logical,” Gutt said.
If the man is identified as Cooper, it would mean he lived some 30 years after parachuting from the plane, defying those who concluded he couldn’t have survived the leap.
Gutt said the case agent is working with the man’s family to obtain items from which to lift fingerprints.
The FBI has partial fingerprints from a magazine left behind on the plane and parts of the airliner, spokeswoman Ayn Sandalo Dietrich said Sunday.
The FBI has learned that the man reported an auto injury in 1971, perhaps to explain injuries suffered in the jump, KING-TV in Seattle reported.
Only a portion of the ransom money — whose serial numbers the FBI had recorded — turned up when a child digging in a sandbar on the Columbia River west of Vancouver in 1980 unearthed a bundle of $20 bills.
One-way ticket bought
It is not surprising that the Cooper story has spawned a dozen books and at least one movie. According to reports, a man calling himself Dan Cooper purchased a one-way ticket to Seattle at the Portland, Ore., airport counter of Northwest Orient Airlines. He was somewhere in his mid-40s, between 5-foot-10 and 6-2, wearing a dark suit.
Once aboard, he ordered a bourbon and water and lighted a cigarette. He called over a flight attendant and handed her a note, printed in all capitals: “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.”
By late afternoon, the plane had landed in Seattle, had been refueled and passengers taken off. By evening, the ransom and parachutes were delivered and the plane took off for Reno, Nev. At 8:13 p.m., the aircraft’s tail section sustained a sudden upward movement.
When the craft landed at 10:15 p.m., authorities searched but Cooper was no longer aboard.
