FBI Gives Up On DB Cooper Plane Hijacking

DB Cooper was a man who disappeared after hijacking a plane and receiving $200,000 in ransom money. What made this case interesting is that he got away by jumping off of the plane he hijacked with a parachute and the money. This happened near Seattle in 1971. The Seattle Times reports the FBI has closed the case as of last month as an unsolved mystery.
Source: www.seattletimes.com...

An excellent thread was written on this explaining what happened at: www.abovetopsecret.com...

What the thread is missing is the numerous and very well researched theories on what happened to DB cooper. There is an excellent article describing these in great detail at: io9.gizmodo.com...

The theories are:
1. He died after jumping
2. He was Kenneth Christiansen
3. He was Lynn Doyle Cooper
4. He was Duane Weber
5. He was Richard McCoy
6. He was Barbara Dayton
7. He was William Gossett
8. He was John List

For those of you who read "The 8 Most Intriguing Theories About Skyjacker D.B. Cooper" please vote on which you think is the correct one. Once again, the link is here: io9.gizmodo.com...

a reply to: wayforward

Whoever he was, he made history whether he meant to or not. Quite an impressive feat - I do not condone crime or armed robbery, but I was entertained by the details and description of this mystery. Thanks for the update wayforward. I guess after 45 years they figure they will never have an answer and might as well not waste any more time when there are hundreds (thousands?) of new cases daily.

He committed his heist 8 years to day Lee Harvey Oswald was killed. They seem to share some facial similarities. I imagine someone who grew up in the french quarter may have come across a Dan Cooper comic book. Or even in the civil air defense as well.

Is this is where someone says "one for the bad guys"?
Cheers

Richard McCoy, has my vote.
He always struck me a the most fitting.
Sad but we will never know for sure.

a reply to: JaMeDoIt

Is that what you are saying? Indeed he was not a good guy, but then again he lost the money(possibly), and may have even died. Still it is a bit like Robin hood. who doesn't like a good rebel?

This reminds me of a Mandela effect I should start a thread on.........

Once I get past the probationary period.

I have had several motorcycles capable of speeds anywhere from 130 to 170 miles an hour. I can tell you if you were in the windblast it would be severe, you could no way manage being in control of even laying flat.
This information was taken on the Boing 727.

Max cruise speed
Mach 0.9

Typical cruise speed
540 mph (470 kn)

Most will know aircraft can be 'stalled', that is reduce speed until you forward momentum is stopped and gravity takes you down. I could not find the stall speed, but believe it to be around 150 knots which converts out in Miles per hour to approximately 170 mph.

If when he jumped out and cleared the rear wing..... well you get the idea. He could easily have been injured or killed just by the wind speed of the jet in flight, let alone trying to keep all his equipment and money bag as he jumped and descended. And he has to remain conscious to pull the ripcord.....

DB Cooper.... a great villain folk hero......... in real life..... well

I mention 'stall speed' as the slowest possible speed the aircraft could have slowed to, to facilitate his exit. After which the jet would have to regain flight speed to avoid crashing.

originally posted by: Plotus
I
Most will know aircraft can be 'stalled', that is reduce speed until you forward momentum is stopped and gravity takes you down. I could not find the stall speed, but believe it to be around 150 knots which converts out in Miles per hour to approximately 170 mph.

If when he jumped out and cleared the rear wing..... well you get the idea. He could easily have been injured or killed just by the wind speed of the jet in flight, let alone trying to keep all his equipment and money bag as he jumped and descended. And he has to remain conscious to pull the ripcord.....

)

I don't know whether you just made these "facts" up or have some agenda that requies you to lie, so I dug out my old 727 performance charts to see how far off you were. First, an aircraft stall has nothing to do with forward momentum. It occurs once a critical "alpha" or angle of attack is exceeded. The angle of attack is the angle between relative wind and the chord line of the airfoil. It is usually in the neighborhood of 14 or so degrees. When a wing stalls, the airflow no longer flows smoothly over the cambered surface of the airfoil, causing the center of lift to move to the rear, back behind the normal 20 degrees or so of mean aerodynamic chord, causing a pitch down. Once alpha goes under the critical number airflow reattaches and the wing is again flying. And the stall speed of the 727 is NOT 150 knots. With flaps 40 it can be as low as 75 knots. That is 85 mph. every skydiver that hits terminal velocity is doing 120 mph. When I was flying the 727 our normal approach speed was, depending on weight,outside temp, and other factors like gust factors, was in the 135-145 range.
A word to the wise here might be in order. If you're going to make up stuff here, there is very likely here on ATS someone with the experience, education or knowledge to call you out. If you don't know the facts, just ask. Don't just pick some "fact" out of thin air.

originally posted by: Plotus
I mention 'stall speed' as the slowest possible speed the aircraft could have slowed to, to facilitate his exit. After which the jet would have to regain flight speed to avoid crashing.

"Stall speed" is a meaningless term. An aircraft can go straight up until it eaches 0 airspeed, pivot in yaw, go straight down, then fly off upight, and never stall, although it got to zero airspeed. That is called a "hamerhead turn. On the othe hand, an aircraft that might stall at 60 knots in level unloaded flight, can also stall at 150 knots in a full power vertical dive in a vertical down snap roll. A stall is caused by angle of attack.
And a stall doesn't mean you crash. In this year's iAC Unlimited aerobatic sequence there are 9 stalls. 7 of them are in snap rolls, 1 is in a tail slide, and 1 is at the entry to a 1 and 1/4 turn inverted spin. I've flown the sequence at least 60 times so far this year and haven't crashed once. That's 540 stalls without a crash.

BRAVO, bravo..... a damn smart guy in my estimation. I am humbled, as I damn well should be, throwing out opinions that conflict with yours. If every thread could have been policed here, certainly you would be the one for the job. People everywhere should shower you with stars. It would be foolishness on my part to comment on anything aviation related with such an astute observer/individual, oh, and I often times look in the mirror to make sure my head's not getting too big. After all, that would never do if I had to jump out of a 727 and survive, I might loose it.

Well now that I'm sufficiently shamed, I guess I'll skip over to my safe space and hide in the dark for a few days and reflect on my actions with my imaginary friends. I do deserve some time to myself to shed the shame..... oh and the DB Cooper thing. In the future, well I'll have to just remain silent.

In closing...... I'm feeling quite cavalier, and don't think I will even use 'spelcheck'.......

And well..... I'm no Skip Stewart which is obvious.

If anyone is unaware of the exploits of Richard McCoy Jr then you should read up
There's no doubt in my mind that he was DB Cooper.
Not only did he hijack a jet using the exact same M.O. as DB Cooper, but he did it just 4 1/2 months later and managed to parachute to safety no problem...
en.wikipedia.org...

The reason that the FBI is giving up on DB Cooper is because they know they shot him to death in November 9, 1974


McCoy alongside DB Cooper photofit

a reply to: wayforward

My best guess is that Richard McCoy (#5 in the list) was the culprit. I would have believed Duane Weber (#4 in the list) was the culprit until in 1980 the only known bills from the DB cooper incident were found. If Duane Weber was the culprit, then why did he leave lots of cash buried for others to find? If the culprit did go on living for a long period of time, he would have figured out how to spend all those bills without getting caught. Yet, no other bills from DB Cooper seem to have been discovered except for the ones that were unburied.

However, I'm open to Duane Weber having been the culprit because he may have taken most of the bills to Canada where they were spent and stayed, never to return to the US but rather circulating until their wearing out. This would explain why the bills were never recovered beyond the buried pile.

The distant third option for me is that he died on impact. I doubt that because if that occurred, I don't think either some of the bills or all of the bills would have been recovered, not just a few buried bills in one place. The 1980 discovery of the $5,000 in bills was a huge clue, but I interpret that not as him dying on impact but rather him dying the following year as Richard McCoy.

And well..... I'm no Skip Stewart which is obvious.

I know you're not Skip. When your comment was posted, Skip and Christina were in Midland Texas.

Hi guys, I'd like to contribute to this although this is old news from last year. After years of reading and research, I believe he made it out alive. What makes me think this way is not because a body has never been found. Finding a body in the wilderness is a tall feat and many people who have disappeared into the woods have never been found. What tells me he survived is that there just is no such thing as a coincidence. The coincidence here is the cash on the beach. They found three bundles together with nothing keeping them together (i.e. a bag). The chances that three bundles of cash being deposited at the same spot approach zero. The next thing is that this was a public beach which was easily accessible. It's a perfect place to drop the cash to make it look like he drowned and throw off the FBI. Finally, the cash somehow got transported upstream. I don't buy that the bag of cash or his body was caught on a propeller of a ship. Even if this did happen, experimental evidence suggests that the cash does not float, but immediately sinks once exposed to water and is at best neutrally buoyant. I also work at a water science center, and have extensive training in geomorphology. I have a hard time believing that river brought in that much bed load to drop on that stretch of beach in a matter of a handful of years. Looking at video of the that stretch of river, there would be little bed load transport at all. The geologists working this case were either not versed in geomorphology or were hacks. That cash was buried there by a human.

My next line of thought is the cold. I'm SERE trained, and have been in extreme conditions. I have 1,200 hours of flight time, and spent most of it at about 10,000 feet - the altitude DB Cooper parachuted out at. The cold would not have been a factor in a jump from 10,000 feet. He definitely would have been chilled by the time he got to the ground. A speed of 100 knots would not have been enough to disorient him. It would not take a rocket scientist to figure out where the rip cord was on his pack, which I'm sure he at least quickly inspected before jumping. I'm not too familiar with parachutes, but I would be 100% confident that I could get my chute open if given a pack with zero experience given those conditions.

The area he jumped out is not "Wilderness" per se. It is actually quite developed - fields, roads, etc. I believe he waited to jump until he saw civilization - i.e. lights below him. It would not make any sense to bail out into the dark over woods, with no lights. The jump point south of Lake Merwin makes it just mere miles to Portland. I bet by the time the plane was landing in Reno, he was riding in a taxi cab to Portland International to catch a flight under the name, "insert here". Long gone even before they started the search.

a reply to: wayforward

Absolutely, that is my exact line of thought. My training in geomorphology also screams to me that a human buried it on that beach - not a natural process. The geologists and investigators on this case early on were hacks.