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Nevada had ties to D.B. Cooper
April 11, 2008, 12:05 AM
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The legend of D.B. Cooper still lives in Nevada, the West and the rest of the world.
The Cooper saga, which led to two full-length Hollywood motion pictures and more than a dozen books, is as engrossing today as it was nearly 37 years ago when it began unfolding on a rainy afternoon at the Portland, Ore., airport.
On Nov. 24, 1971, a man described by witnesses as "nondescript," wearing dark glasses, a neat business suit, loafers and a trench coat and carrying a briefcase, boarded a Northwest Airlines 737 at the Portland air terminal.
Shortly after the aircraft departed for Seattle, the man, who was sitting in a middle seat in the last row of the aircraft, handed the flight attendant a note that read, "I have a bomb here. I would like you to sit by me. "
She followed his instructions, and when she sat down next to him, he opened his briefcase and displayed what he said was a bomb, which consisted of several long cylinders that resembled dynamite that were connected to a battery and timer.
He then dictated a note to her to hand to the pilot. The note read:
"I want $200,000 by 5 p.m. in cash, in 20 dollar bills. I want 2 back parachutes and 2 front parachutes. Make them sport parachutes. When we land, I want a fuel truck ready to refuel. No funny stuff or I'll do the job."
She delivered the note to the pilot, who radioed the note's contents to Northwest officials at the Seattle airport. The FBI was notified, the parachutes obtained, the $200,000 hastily gathered from a Seattle bank, and the 737 landed at Seattle's Seatac Airport.
Upon landing, the 35 passengers and two of the three flight attendants exited. Remaining on board were the hijacker, the attendant to whom he had given the note. the pilot and the co-pilot.
The hijacker, who by now had been identified as Dan Cooper (for some reason, he became known as D.B. Cooper, and he has gone under this name ever since) then passed a typed note to the pilot ordering him to fly to Mexico City.
The pilot told Cooper he would have to make a refueling stop in Reno.
Cooper agreed, and the plane took off from Seattle to Reno. About 35 minutes into the flight, Cooper, holding the briefcase containing the bomb, escorted the flight attendant to the cockpit and locked her in there with the pilot and co-pilot.
Cooper then returned to the cabin, picked up the $200,000 that had been stuffed in a canvas bag bearing the words "Seattle First National Bank," opened the rear exit door, and parachuted out at approximately 8 p.m. in a rugged mountainous area in southwestern Washington or northeastern Oregon.
No one has seen or heard from the man calling himself Dan Cooper since he jumped from the aircraft at an elevation of 10,000 feet that rainy and cold night on Nov. 24, 1971.
As the plane headed toward Reno, a manhunt began for the fugitive. Although it was almost certain he had landed in Washington or Oregon, authorities in Idaho, California and Nevada also were alerted, and highway patrolmen and sheriff's deputies in Washoe, Humboldt and Churchill counties were told to be on the lookout.
When the 737 landed at Reno, FBI agents interviewed the flight attendant (she subsequently retired and became a nun), who could provide no clues to Cooper other than his description.
Since that day, several imposters have come forward claiming to be Cooper. Nine years later, in 1980, an 8-year-old boy on a camping trip with his family on the shores of the Columbia River near Portland found three bundles of the $20 bills Cooper had been given from the Seattle bank. The amount totaled $5,800. The boy was allowed to keep it, and some of the bills were recently displayed at a Long Beach, Calif., coin and collectibles show.
Last month, a parachute believed to have been used by Cooper in his jump from the airplane was found by children in the southwestern Washington city of Amboy. Investigations determined the chute was of a different material than that of the one Cooper used.
Three months ago, the FBI reopened the investigation as a "cold case," and in June, the boy who found the $20 bills on the Columbia River in 1980 (the "boy" is now 36) will auction off 15 of them at a live and online auction in Dallas.
The two movies about the D.B. Cooper hijacking are occasionally shown on cable TV and may be purchased through various Web sites. The first film, made in 1981, was titled "The Pursuit of D.B. Cooper" and starred Robert Duvall as an insurance investigator pursuing Cooper and Treat Williams, who played Cooper. Portraying himself in the movie was famous ABC reporter Howard K. Smith.
The second movie, made in 2004 and titled "Without a Paddle," featured the remainder of Cooper's loot. It starred Matthew Price, Andrew Hampton and Jarred Rumbold.
Meanwhile, it's been nearly 37 years since that day before Thanksgiving in 1971 when D.B. Cooper leaped out of the 737 airliner and instantaneously became an American folk icon. If Cooper is alive today, he'd been in his early- to mid-80s.
If readers know of a suspicious-acting oldtimer in these parts who could be Mr. Cooper, call the Fallon PD or Churchill County sheriff at once.
- David M. Henley is publisher
emeritus of the Lahontan Valley News.
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P/SUNNY 78°
