00:00November 24th, 1971. A cold, rainy afternoon at Portland International Airport.
00:06A man calling himself Dan Cooper purchases a one-way ticket to Seattle.
00:10He looks like any other businessman mid-40s, wearing a dark suit and a black clip-on tie.
00:15He sits calmly in seat 18C, ordering a bourbon and soda.
00:20Shortly after takeoff, Cooper hands a note to the flight attendant.
00:24When she doesn't read it immediately, he leans in and whispers,
00:27Miss, you'd better look at that note.
00:30I have a bomb.
00:31He opens his briefcase just enough for her to see a glimpse of red cylinders and wires.
00:36His demands are clear, $200,000 and four parachutes.
00:40The plane circles for hours while the FBI scrambles to meet his demands.
00:44Finally, they land in Seattle.
00:46The money is delivered and the passengers are released into the rain.
00:50With only the crew remaining, Cooper orders the pilot back into the air.
00:54His destination? Mexico City.
00:56But he insists they fly low, slow, and with the landing gear down.
01:01Somewhere over the rugged wilderness of Washington State, amidst a fierce thunderstorm, Cooper does the unthinkable.
01:07He walks to the rear of the plane.
01:09He lowers the upstairs, exposing himself to the freezing wind and driving rain.
01:14Without a word, he leaps into the black abyss.
01:18He banished.
01:19No body, no parachute, no trace.
01:21The FBI launched a massive search, trekking through the muddy, evergreen forests of the Pacific Northwest.
01:28Aerial teams scoured the mountains and divers searched the riverbeds.
01:32They found nothing but a few small pieces of evidence that only deepened the mystery.
01:37A black clip-on tie left on seat 1-8-C and a set of instructions for lowering the stairs
01:42were the only clues.
01:44Dan Cooper had become a ghost.
01:46The case went cold for nearly a decade.
01:48Then, in 1980, a young boy named Brian Ingrid was playing on the banks of the Columbia River.
01:54While digging in the sand, he uncovered three rotting bundles of cash nearly $6,000 and $20 bills.
02:01The serial numbers matched the ransom money.
02:04It was the first and only physical evidence of the loot ever found.
02:08But it only raised more questions.
02:10Did Cooper die in the jump?
02:12Did the money wash up there years later?
02:14For 45 years, the FBI followed every lead from biometric tests to suspect sketches.
02:20In 2016, the FBI officially suspended the investigation.
02:24The file on D.B. Cooper was closed, but the world refused to let it go.
02:29He remains a folk hero to some, a brilliant criminal to others.
02:33The only man to ever hijack an American plane and disappear into history without a trace.
02:38Somewhere in these woods, the truth is still out there.
02:41Or perhaps D.B. Cooper is still out there, living a life bought with the most daring heist in history.
Comments