Book

D. B. Cooper and Flight 305: Reexamining the Hijacking and Disappearance

2021

Synopsis

The "D. B. Cooper" case is the only unsolved act of air piracy in US history. On November 24, 1971, a polite, nondescript, and dark-complexioned man calling himself "Dan Cooper" hijacked Northwest Airlines Flight 305, Boeing 727, between Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington. At Seattle International Airport, he demanded and received $200,000 and four parachutes, released the passengers, and ordered the crew to take him to Mexico. Somewhere along the way, he jumped. He was never found or identified. Forty-five years later, the FBI gave up the hunt. This book looks at the case from the perspective of a mathematician and pilot. It uses previously unexamined data and original-source documents, combined with the tools of statistics, aeronautics, and meteorology, to show where and how the FBI could resume the search and possibly find out at last who "D. B. Cooper" really was.

Suggested Reading

Finding DB Cooper: Chasing the Last Lead in America's only Unsolved Skyjacking

The day before Thanksgiving in 1971, a man wearing a business suit and carrying a briefcase boarded a Northwest Orient flight in Portland, bound for Seattle. Claiming to have a bomb, the skyjacker held the passengers and crew for $200,000 ransom while demanding four parachutes. After getting his mon...

NORJAK: The Investigation of D.B. Cooper

NORJAK: The Investigation of D.B. Cooper, written by retired FBI Special Agent Ralph P. Himmelsbach and published in 1986, presents an insider's account of the famous 1971 skyjacking from the direct perspective of the bureau's lead investigator on the case. The book details the harrowing events of T...

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