There have been several aviation incidents that have baffled investigators since air travel was borne. The case of DB Cooper might just be the most mysterious of them all.
Laying open for an astounding 45 years, the plane hijacking case, and the whereabouts of its perpetrator, have never been solved.
DB or Dan Cooper is the pseudonym given to the man who hijacked a flight in America in 1971 before disappearing without a trace.
The smartly dressed man wore a business suit as he boarded the Northwest Orient Airlines flight in Portland, Oregon, on November 24 that year.
He was aged in his 40s and donned dark sunglasses as he ordered a bourbon then lit up a cigarette.
Soon after the plane took off for its destination of Seattle, Cooper handed a note to Florence Schaffner.
The 23-year-old flight attendant read that the plane she was travelling on was being hijacked.
Using the threat of a bomb in his suitcase, Cooper had written demands for $ 200,000 in cash (£132,000), which would have an approximate value of £970,560 today.
The note read: “I HAVE A BOMB IN MY BRIEFCASE. I WILL USE IT IF NECESSARY. I WANT YOU TO SIT NEXT TO ME. YOU ARE BING (sic) HIJACKED.”
His other requests included four parachutes when they landed in Seattle, a fuel truck on standby at the airport and a second flight after that to Mexico City.
The FBI was waiting to provide Cooper with his demands as the plane touched down.
All 36 passengers were allowed to disembark but the pilot was ordered to fly Cooper to Mexico.
The hijacker wouldn’t let the pilot fly him higher than 10,000ft, and when the plane neared Nevada for a fuel pitstop, Cooper opened the rear door and parachuted out.
No trace of Cooper, alive or dead, has ever been found, but there have been a few potential clues along the way.
Earlier this year armchair investigators found titanium on the necktie Cooper left behind.
They believe this particular type of metal proves the hijacker had worked for Boeing as an engineer or a manager in one of the plants.
In 1980 an eight-year-old boy in Washington uncovered cash that matched the serial numbers of some of Cooper’s ransom money.
The unsolved mystery has garnered such widespread interest over the decades that it has been the subject of a feature film and even led to fan conspiracy theories in the TV show Mad Men.
It wasn’t until last year that DB Cooper was taken off the FBI’s Most Wanted list after a staggering 45 years.
The FBI’s special agent in charge of the case, Frank Montoya Jr., said: “It was just time, because there isn’t anything new out there.”
