

The crime remains the only unsolved case of air piracy in the history of commercial aviation. Cooper".įor 45 years after the hijacking, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) maintained an active investigation and built an extensive case file, but ultimately did not reach any definitive conclusions. The hijacker identified himself as Dan Cooper, but because of a reporter's mistake, he became known as "D. The discovery of the money renewed public interest in the mystery, but yielded no additional information about the hijacker's identity or fate, and the remaining money was never recovered.

In 1980, a small portion of the ransom money was found along the banks of the Columbia River. The hijacker has never been identified or found. About 30 minutes after taking off from Seattle, the hijacker opened the aircraft's aft door, deployed the staircase, and parachuted into the night over southwestern Washington. After releasing the passengers in Seattle, the hijacker instructed the flight crew to refuel the aircraft and begin a second flight to Mexico City, with a refueling stop in Reno, Nevada. During the flight from Portland, Oregon, to Seattle, Washington, the hijacker told a flight attendant he was armed with a bomb, demanded $200,000 in ransom (equivalent to $1,338,000 in 2021), and requested four parachutes upon landing in Seattle. Cooper is a media epithet for an unidentified man who hijacked Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305, a Boeing 727 aircraft operated by Northwest Orient Airlines, in United States airspace on November 24, 1971. N467US, the aircraft involved in the hijackingīetween Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washingtonĭ.B.
