The Legend

On Thanksgiving Eve 1971, while millions of Americans prepared for turkey and football, a nondescript man in a business suit bought a one-way ticket from Portland to Seattle for twenty dollars cash. He gave his name as Dan Cooper, boarded Northwest Orient Flight 305, and settled into seat 18C with a bourbon and 7-Up. Less than thirty minutes after takeoff, he handed flight attendant Florence Schaffner a note claiming he had a bomb. What followed was the most audacious crime in commercial aviation history. Cooper collected $200,000 in ransom, released the passengers in Seattle, and then ordered the crew to fly toward Mexico at low altitude. Somewhere over the dark, rain-soaked forests of southwest Washington, he opened the Boeing 727’s unique rear stairway and parachuted into the night with the money. He vanished completely. No trace of the man, the parachute, or most of the cash has ever been found. The press soon misnamed him D.B. Cooper, and America gained its only unsolved skyjacking and one of its greatest folk legends.