The man who beat the FBI: hijacked a plane, asked for thousands of dollars, jumped with a parachute and was never caught

DB Cooper was considered almost the “Holy Grail” of American mysteries in 1971when he donned sunglasses, a suit, and a black tie to hijack a Seattle-bound airliner and bail out with $200,000.

Netflix has dedicated a series to him, DB Cooper: where are you? which reviews some of the best-known theories of Cooper’s identity with various people who have dedicated their lives to searching for him.

“The only person more famous than DB Cooper is the one who finds him,” Geoffrey Gray, author of the book, says in the series. Skyjack: The Hunt for DB Cooper.

The DB Cooper Mystery

Was the hijacker known as DB Cooper actually Robert Rackstraw, a Vietnam vet and former pilot who may also have worked for the CIA?

He is the suspect named by author and former television producer Tom Colbert and his retired volunteer team of detectives in what Colbert says was his “historic fight for the truth.”

Or maybe DB Cooper was a former Boeing employee who died last year in a Santa Rosa retirement community? Or was it another Vietnam vet arrested for faking kidnappings in the early 1970s?

Some participants in CooperCon Annual Festival they opt for Barbara Dayton, a transgender former merchant marine who has told her friends that she is DB Cooper.

Meanwhile, other experts, like “The Cooper Vortex” podcast host Darren Schaefer, say they’re intrigued by a more recent theory that the hijacker was a Canadian who used the name of the pilot hero of a French comic.

Rather than proving any of these theories, the Netflix documentary seems more interested in the nature of people’s obsessions.

Cooper is the subject of a seemingly endless number of books, films, feature films and television specials. With its 70s pop-style songs and graphics, the Netflix series also places the kidnapping in its own particular cultural context.

Air travel had caught on to the masses, but airport security was virtually non-existent, even as plane hijackings had become almost routine international events.

What was the hijacking of DB Cooper from a Boeing aircraft in 1971 like

On Thanksgiving Eve in 1971, a man calling himself “Dan Cooper” purchased a ticket for Northwest Orient Flight 305.

The man, mistakenly identified as DB Cooper by media at the time, was kindly handed over to a flight attendant a note saying he was carrying a bomb and opened his briefcase to show him what appeared to be dynamite.

Cooper asked for $200,000 in cash and four parachutes, just in case one fails. When the Boeing 727 touched down in Seattle, he freed the passengers, boarded the refueled plane, and displaying professional knowledge of aircraft and flying, DC Cooper directed the pilots to Mexico City.

Somewhere in the wilds of Washington or Oregon, however, he made his last move by jumping out of a plane at night and into a storm.

Maybe he crashed to earth and died, but most Cooper fans like to believe he got away with their money. The abductor’s anonymous face in the police sketch also prompted a deluge of calls from people saying his colleague, neighbor, brother, father or ex-husband was Cooper.

The FBI has given up

The FBI officially closed its investigation in 2016 without reaching conclusions. Thus, Cooper joined Big footDepression-era gangsters and other anti-heroes of American folklore.