Prompt Cast
The DB Cooper Heist: A Mysterious Hijacking and Unsolved Crime
TLDR In 1971, a man known as DB Cooper hijacked a plane, demanded $200,000 in cash, and then disappeared after parachuting out of the aircraft. Despite extensive investigations and numerous suspects, the true identity and fate of DB Cooper remain unknown, making it one of the most intriguing unsolved crimes in history.
Timestamped Summary
00:00
In 1971, a man walked into Portland Airport and took a picture, marking the beginning of the DB Cooper heist.
08:08
In 1971, a man named Dan Cooper boarded a Boeing 727-100 flight from Portland to Seattle, handed a flight attendant a note claiming he had a bomb, and thus began the DB Cooper heist.
14:42
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, there was a significant increase in commercial airplane hijackings, leading the FBI to consider putting air marshals on every flight, although this was not the case for the flight that D.B. Cooper hijacked.
20:43
D.B. Cooper hijacked the plane and demanded $200,000 in negotiable American currency from SeaTec airport, causing the FBI to get involved and try to gather the money within an hour.
27:27
The FBI and local cops scrambled to gather $200,000 in cash, which turned out to be the easiest part, while Northwest Orient's president agreed to pay and their insurance company covered most of the cost, and they were able to get the money from a downtown bank branch with stacks of $20 bills that had recorded serial numbers.
33:57
After the passengers were released and the money was on board, Tina Mucklough sat back down and D.B. Cooper offered her some of the money, but she declined.
41:06
D.B. Cooper gave specific instructions to the pilots on how to fly the plane, including not going higher than 10,000 feet and not faster than 190 miles per hour, and he also requested to take off with the aft staircase down in the jump position.
47:44
After Tina Mucklall left the first-class curtain, nobody ever saw Dan Cooper again, leading to a manhunt and a search in Ariel, Washington near the Lewis River, with the FBI interviewing everyone in the area with the last name Cooper and mistakenly referring to him as DB Cooper in a press conference.
54:56
The FBI believed that DB Cooper died in the jump due to the freezing temperatures, high speed, and dangerous conditions, and they later discovered that the bomb he had was likely fake.
01:02:03
DB Cooper left behind some clues, including his clip-on tie and cigarette butts, but it wasn't until seven years later that a plastic instruction placard from the flight was found, generating renewed interest in the case.
01:09:20
In 1980, a young boy named Brian Ingram found a stack of bills totaling $5,800, known as DB Cooper money, while camping with his family on Tina Bar, and in 2008, more clues were found when kids discovered a parachute in the woods in Amboy, Washington.
01:16:14
Earl Cossie determined that the parachute found in the woods in 2008 was not DB Cooper's, but it did suggest that Cooper could have made it out alive, leading to renewed interest in the case.
01:22:46
DB Cooper had several potential suspects, including Richard McCoy, Dwayne Weber, Kenny Christensen, and LD Cooper, all of whom had similarities to the DB Cooper profile and were outed as suspects by family members.
01:29:37
DB Cooper's niece revealed in 2011 that her uncle LD Cooper, who worked as an engineer at Boeing, showed up bruised and bleeding for Thanksgiving dinner in 1971 and overheard him and her father saying "we did it, our money problems are over, we hijacked the plane," suggesting LD Cooper's involvement in the heist.
Categories:
Society & Culture
