On November 24, 1971, an unidentified man using the alias Dan Cooper, subsequently known as D. B. Cooper, hijacked Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305, a Boeing 727 aircraft flying from Portland, Oregon, to Seattle, Washington. Cooper told the flight crew he had a bomb, and demanded $200,000 in ransom () and four parachutes upon landing in Seattle.
After releasing the passengers in Seattle, Cooper directed the crew to refuel the aircraft and begin a second flight to Mexico City, with a refueling stop in Reno, Nevada. After taking off from Seattle, Cooper opened the aircraft's aft door, deployed the airstair, and parachuted to an uncertain fate over a remote, heavily wooded area of Southwest Washington. Because of a reporter's error, the aircraft hijacker became known as D. B. Cooper. The hijacker's true identity and fate remain unknown.
In 1980, a small portion of the ransom money ($6,000) was found along the banks of the Columbia River near Vancouver, Washington. The discovery of the money renewed public interest in the crime but yielded no additional information, and the remaining money was never recovered. For 45 years after the hijacking, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) maintained an active investigation and built an extensive case file, but did not reach any definitive conclusions about Cooper's identity. Although the FBI officially suspended active investigation of the case in 2016, journalists, professional investigators, and amateur sleuths continue to pursue numerous theories for Cooper's identity and ultimate fate.
Cooper's hijacking—and several imitators (known as the D. B. Cooper copycat hijackings) the following year—prompted immediate and major upgrades to security measures for airports and commercial aviation. Metal detectors were installed at airports, baggage inspection became mandatory, and passengers who paid cash for tickets on the day of departure were selected for additional scrutiny. The Cooper hijacking is the only documented unsolved case of air piracy in the history of commercial aviation.
Hijacking
On November 24, 1971 (Thanksgiving Eve), a man approached the flight counter for Northwest Orient Airlines at Portland International Airport. Using cash, the man bought a one-way ticket on , a 30-minute trip north to Seattle–Tacoma International Airport (Sea-Tac). On his ticket, the man listed his name as "Dan Cooper". Eyewitnesses described Cooper as a white male in his mid-40s, with dark hair and brown eyes, wearing a black or brown business suit, a white shirt, a thin black tie, a black raincoat, and brown shoes. Carrying a black attaché case and a brown paper bag, Cooper boarded Flight 305, a Boeing 727-100 (FAA registration N467US). Cooper took seat 18-E in the last row and ordered a drink, a bourbon and 7-Up, from a flight attendant.
Including Cooper, Flight 305 had 36 passengers aboard and a crew of six: Captain William A. Scott, First Officer William "Bill" J. Rataczak, flight engineer Harold E. Anderson, and flight attendants Alice Hancock, Tina Mucklow and Florence Schaffner. Flight 305 left Portland on schedule at 2:50 pm PST. Shortly after takeoff, Cooper handed a note to flight attendant Schaffner, who was sitting in the jump seat at the rear of the airplane, directly behind Cooper. Assuming the note was a lonely businessman's telephone number, Schaffner dropped the note unopened into her purse. Cooper then leaned toward her and whispered, "Miss, you'd better look at that note. I have a bomb."
Schaffner opened the note. In neat, all-capital letters printed with a felt-tip pen, Cooper had written, "Miss—I have a bomb in my briefcase and want you to sit by me." Schaffner returned the note to Cooper, sat down as he requested, and asked quietly to see the bomb. Cooper opened his attaché case, and Schaffner saw what appeared to be a bomb: a large cylindrical battery attached with wires to two rows of four red cylinders she assumed were dynamite.. When Schaffner's description was relayed to the FBI command post in Portland, agents stated that dynamite sticks are typically brown or beige in color; the eight red cylinders were probably highway or railroad flares. But because they could not be certain, intervention could not be recommended.
Cooper closed the briefcase and told Schaffner his demands. Schaffner wrote a note with Cooper's demands, brought it to the cockpit, and informed the flight crew of the situation. Captain Scott directed Schaffner to remain in the cockpit for the remainder of the flight and take notes of events as they happened. He then relayed to Northwest flight operations in Minnesota the hijacker's demands: "[Cooper] requests $200,000 in a knapsack by 5:00 pm. He wants two front parachutes, two back parachutes. He wants the money in negotiable American currency." By requesting two sets of parachutes, Cooper implied he planned to take a hostage with him, thereby discouraging authorities from supplying non-functional equipment.
With Schaffner in the cockpit, flight attendant Mucklow sat next to Cooper to act as a liaison between him and the flight crew. Cooper made additional demands through Mucklow: upon landing at Sea-Tac, fuel trucks must meet the plane, and all passengers must remain seated while Mucklow brought the money aboard the plane. Cooper said he would release the passengers after he had the money. The last items brought aboard would be the four parachutes.
Scott informed Sea–Tac air traffic control of the situation, who contacted the Seattle Police Department (SPD) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The passengers were told their arrival in Seattle would be delayed because of a "minor mechanical difficulty". Donald Nyrop, the president of Northwest at the time, authorized payment of the ransom and ordered all employees to cooperate with the hijacker and comply with his demands. For approximately two hours, Flight 305 circled Puget Sound in a holding pattern to give the SPD and the FBI sufficient time to assemble Cooper's ransom money and parachutes, and to mobilize emergency personnel.
On board the aircraft, Cooper demanded Mucklow remain by his side at all times. Mucklow later said Cooper appeared familiar with the local terrain; while looking out the window, he remarked, "Looks like Tacoma down there", as the aircraft flew above it. When Mucklow told Cooper the parachutes were coming from McChord Air Force Base, Cooper correctly noted McChord was only a 20-minute drive from Sea-Tac. She later described the hijacker's demeanor: "[Cooper] was not nervous. He seemed rather nice and he was not cruel or nasty."
While the aircraft continued circling Seattle, Mucklow chatted with Cooper and asked why he chose Northwest Airlines to hijack. Cooper laughed and said, "It's not because I have a grudge against your airline, it's just because I have a grudge", before he explained the flight simply suited his needs. Cooper asked where Mucklow was from; she answered she was originally from Pennsylvania but was living in Minneapolis at the time. Cooper responded Minnesota was "very nice country." Mucklow asked where Cooper was from but he became upset and refused to answer. Cooper asked Mucklow if she smoked and offered her a cigarette. Mucklow replied she had quit but accepted the cigarette.
FBI records note Cooper spoke briefly to an unidentified passenger while the aircraft maintained its holding pattern over Seattle. In his interview with FBI agents, passenger George Labissoniere stated he visited the restroom directly behind Cooper on several occasions. After one visit, Labissoniere said the path to his seat was blocked by a passenger wearing a cowboy hat, who was questioning Mucklow about the supposed mechanical problem delaying them. Labissoniere said Cooper was initially amused by the interaction, then became irritated and told the man to return to his seat, but "the cowboy" ignored Cooper and continued to question Mucklow. Labissoniere claimed he eventually persuaded "the cowboy" to return to his seat.
Mucklow's version of the interaction differed from Labissoniere's. She said a passenger approached her and asked for a sports magazine to read because he was bored. She and the passenger moved to an area directly behind Cooper, where they both looked for magazines. The passenger took a copy of The New Yorker and returned to his seat. When Mucklow returned to sit with Cooper, he said, "If that is a sky marshal, I don't want any more of that," but Mucklow reassured Cooper no sky marshals were on the flight. Despite his brief interaction with Cooper, "the cowboy" was not interviewed by the FBI.
The $200,000 ransom was received from Seattle First National Bank in a bag weighing approximately . This was because the ransom money was made of 10,000 unmarked $20 bills, as Cooper had specifically requested. The money, most of which had serial numbers beginning with "L" and thus indicated issuance by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, was photographed on microfilm by the FBI. The SPD obtained the two front (reserve) parachutes from a local skydiving school, and the two back (main) parachutes from a local stunt pilot.
Passengers released
Around 5:24 PST, Captain Scott was informed the parachutes had been delivered to Sea-Tac and notified Cooper they would be landing soon. At 5:46 PST, Flight 305 landed at Sea-Tac. With Cooper's permission, Scott parked the aircraft on a partially lit runway, away from the main terminal. Cooper demanded only one representative of the airline approach the plane with the parachutes and money, and the only entrance and exit would be through the aircraft's front door via boarding stairs.
Northwest's Seattle operations manager, Al Lee, was designated to be the courier. To avoid the possibility Cooper might mistake Lee's airline uniform for a law enforcement officer, he changed into civilian clothes for the task. With the passengers remaining seated, a ground crew attached a boarding stair. Per Cooper's directive, Mucklow exited the aircraft through the front door and retrieved the bag containing the ransom money. When she returned, she carried the bag past the seated passengers to Cooper in the last row.
Cooper then agreed to release the passengers. As they disembarked, Cooper inspected the money. In an attempt to break the tension, Mucklow jokingly asked Cooper if she could have some of it. Cooper readily agreed and handed her a packet of bills, but she immediately returned the money and explained accepting gratuities was against company policy. She said Cooper had tried to tip her and the other two flight attendants earlier in the flight with money from his pocket, but they had each declined, citing the policy.
With the passengers safely disembarked, only Cooper and the six crew members remained aboard. In accordance with his demands, Mucklow made three trips outside the aircraft to retrieve the parachutes, which she brought to him in the rear of the plane. When Mucklow brought the final parachute to Cooper, she gave him printed instructions for using the parachutes, but Cooper said he did not need them. With all of his ransom items aboard, lead flight attendant Hancock then asked Cooper if the flight attendants could leave, to which he replied, "Whatever you girls would like", but directed that Mucklow had to stay with him. Hancock and Schaffner immediately exited the aircraft. Shortly after their release, Schaffner reentered the aircraft to retrieve her purse, which was stored in a compartment behind Cooper's seat. When she asked for Cooper's permission to move behind him to grab her purse, he said that was fine and jokingly told her: "I won't bite".