On the FBI website, the person involved in this criminal case is listed in the "History" section. The same section describes the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, which killed almost three thousand people, the actions of the gangster Al Capone, on whose orders rival criminals were shot in batches, and the adventures of the famous Bonnie and Clyde, who were also noted for robberies and murders.
Many, many enthusiasts have been trying to solve its secret for decades. After all, even the real name of the criminal is still unknown, to whom songs, films, TV shows and books, many books are dedicated. So far, only one thing can be definitely stated - the person involved in this criminal case is not a murderer or a terrorist.
Troubled passenger on flight 305
On November 24, 1971, a man in his forties, who identified himself as Dan Cooper (no one asked for documents at that time), bought a Northwest Orient Airlines ticket for flight 305 Portland-Seattle for cash.
His appearance was completely unremarkable, a kind of middle-class businessman - a suit, a black tie (he will still play a role in this story), a white ironed shirt.
Even before the plane started moving, the passenger in seat 18-C in the last row asked for a bourbon and soda.
After the Boeing 727 took off, he handed a note to 23-year-old flight attendant Florence Schefner. The flight attendant, accustomed to the increased attention of male passengers, simply stuffed it into her pocket. But the occupant of chair 18-C was quite persistent and made Florence read the note.
Promotional video:
“I have a bomb in my briefcase. If necessary, I will blow it up. I want you to sit next to me. This is a kidnapping. This is what was written on a piece of paper in capital letters.
A 1972 FBI sketch of D. B. Cooper.
The frightened stewardess sat down next to the dangerous passenger. Dan Cooper opened his cheap briefcase and showed her a pile of wires and some red briquettes. At his request, the stewardess wrote down a list of requirements for the owner of a difficult portfolio - $ 200,000 in cash (taking into account inflation now it is about $ 1.2 million), four parachutes - two spare and two main ones. “And no jokes. Or I'll blow up the plane."
Florence took the note to the aircraft commander. When she returned, the mysterious stranger, wearing sunglasses by then, was smoking and chatting with another flight attendant, Tina Maclowe.
Tina asked him why he decided to hijack the liner of this particular airline. “This is not because I have a grudge against your airlines,” the passenger replied. "It's because everything pisses me off."
While Cooper is confiding with the flight attendants, the pilots report the hijacker's demands to dispatchers in Seattle, who are already notifying the relevant departments. The president of Northwest Orient Airlines gives the go-ahead for the ransom and orders the crew to follow the hijacker's demands.
At Cooper's direction, the plane lands in Seattle and is driven to a distant, well-lit area in the pouring rain. The hijacker orders to close all windows with curtains.
A few hours later, ten thousand unmarked twenty-dollar bills (FBI agents transcribed each of them on microfilm) and parachutes are brought on board. The passenger puts down the army models and picks up the civilian ones, with a pull ring. After that, he releases all passengers (36 people) and part of the crew - only the commander, co-pilot, flight engineer and stewardess remain on board.
While the plane is being refueled at the request of Cooper, he explains to the crew his plan of action. What he wants is this: for the plane to fly southeast towards Mexico City, as slowly as possible, at a maximum of three kilometers. The chassis should be released and the interior de-sealed.
After some discussion, Cooper agrees to fly to Reno (Nevada) - it was explained to him that the aircraft simply will not reach Mexico City if his requirements are met. The hijacker demands that the tail ladder be lowered during takeoff, they explain to him that this is also unrealistic.
Around 19:40, the Boeing 727 taxied for takeoff with five people on board. After about 15 minutes of flight, Cooper demands that the flight attendant lower the tail ramp. She explains to him that it is dangerous. “Okay, I'll do it myself,” says Cooper and orders the flight attendant to go to the cockpit. At approximately 20:00, the crew realizes that Cooper has released the tail ladder. At 20:13, the tail of the aircraft jerks up sharply.
Nobody saw the moment of his jump - neither the Boeing crew, nor the pilots of military aircraft accompanying the liner. But one thing can be said for sure - at that moment the liner was flying in pitch darkness over a wooded, very sparsely populated area.
Reconstruction of Cooper's jump.
Two hours later, the plane lands in Reno. He is met by a representative delegation - policemen, FBI agents.
The only thing left on board by the passenger of "Dan Cooper" was a tie, a tie clip, two of four parachutes, a large number of cigarette butts and a total of 66 fingerprints.
Stop the plane - I'll get off
This is not to say that America has not previously encountered aircraft hijacking. From May 1961 to January 1973, there were almost 160 such cases. Moreover, at the initial stage of this epidemic, the hijackers basically demanded to be taken to Cuba - the revolution had just won there, and the Island of Liberty seemed to be such a socialist paradise 90 kilometers from the US coast.
Those wishing to enter the "first socialist state in the Western Hemisphere" included such exotic individuals as a former psychiatric hospital patient with a three-year-old son, a student armed with insect spray, and a retired special forces soldier who claimed that he was going to kill Fidel Castro with his bare hands.
But not only Cuba attracted hijackers of passenger planes. A certain marine of Italian origin thus fled to Rome from a military tribunal, and a deserter sailor and his girlfriend from Guatemala were able to get to Buenos Aires.
There were also bright "political" actions. In June 1972, Willie Roger Holder and Catherine Mary Kirkow hijacked a Western Airlines plane as it prepared to land in Seattle. In this way they wanted to achieve the release of the black activist Angela Davis (in the USSR hooligan ditties were then composed about her) and take her to North Vietnam. However, they did not succeed.
At the same time, even in the midst of air piracy, air carriers refused to introduce strict control measures, but preferred to somehow negotiate with the hijackers. Only one percent of passengers went through metal detectors, and only the ticket sellers decided who to check and who not. Why?
Because airlines were afraid that passengers would refuse air travel if they were treated like ordinary criminals - to inspect baggage, etc. That was the explanation.
So it is not surprising that air pirates could carry on board a machine gun in a trombone case (this happened in 1972), grenades, knives, loaded pistols, and even cans of gasoline.
Physical screening of all passengers was only introduced in January 1973, after authorities realized that aircraft could be used as weapons of mass destruction. In November 1972, pilots who seized another liner threatened to send it to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee if they were not paid $ 10 million.
When the regime was tightened, the epidemic of air piracy in the United States came to naught.
Looking for firefighters, looking for police, looking for photographers
It was clear to the FBI agents that "Dan Cooper" was not the hijacker's real name. But this was by no means the only problem that law enforcement officers faced.
The FBI's focus on D. B. Cooper.
Five days after the incident, the FBI circulated a hand-drawn portrait of the suspect. A flurry of messages fell upon the bureau - the initiative citizens dreamed of a hijacker at every corner. Perhaps because the air pirate had an absolutely ordinary, unremarkable appearance.
More than a thousand people and helicopters were involved in combing the area of the alleged landing of the hijacker. FBI agents interviewed local farmers. Nothing, no trace.
Began and "working off the contingent" - one of the first interrogated a resident of Oregon, Dee Bee Cooper, who already had problems with the law. This Cooper was out of business. But a local reporter, who was in a hurry to catch this story by the deadline, confused the hijacker's pseudonym and the name and surname of the interrogated. Since then, the fan of Boeing with a tail ladder in the press was called only so - "Dee B Cooper".
The real McCoy
The Bureau hardly suspected then that this was just the beginning of the hunt for invisibility, which would last not years, but decades. And the suspects will not be dozens, but hundreds.
Soon after the mysterious disappearance of "DeB Cooper", the FBI had a "perfect suspect" - Vietnam War veteran, former helicopter pilot Richard McCoy.
The fact is that a few months after the incident with Northwest Orient Airlines, McCoy hijacked a Boeing 727 in exactly the same way as the Cooper. But he demanded a larger ransom - 500 thousand dollars - and he was armed with a pistol and a grenade.
Just a few days later, the police arrested the air pirate at his own house. McCoy was sentenced to 45 years in prison, but escaped from Pennsylvania federal prison in 1974 and later died in a shootout with the feds.
Richard McCoy.
In 1991, one of the many enthusiastic investigators involved in the McCoy case wrote a book claiming that the veteran pilot and the Cooper were one and the same person. Allegedly, his family claimed that the tie clip left by Cooper on the plane belonged to McCoy.
In 1972, a total of 15 people tried to replicate Cooper's feat. All of them were caught.
“The United States in 1971 was a country that was at war with itself, it was a time of tremendous upheaval. In 1971, the economy began to decline and was accompanied by a flourishing counterculture. The number of bomb threats and explosions in government buildings was at an all-time high.
Inner cities turned into ghettos. We were losing the Vietnam War and soldiers were returning home addicted to heroin. The basic idea was that there was no control. The country went crazy, paranoia gripped the nation. This is how journalist Jeffrey Gray, author of Airplane Hijacking: The Hunt for BB Cooper, describes the spirit of the time.
Who is this "Dee B. Cooper"? Did DB Cooper have accomplices on the ground, or was he acting alone? Did he survive the jump from the Boeing? The FBI painfully searched for answers to these and many questions and even conducted an investigative experiment in the air, imitating his jump.
“We initially assumed that Cooper was an experienced paratrooper, maybe even a paratrooper,” explained FBI special agent Larry Carr, who led the investigation from 2006 until its completion in 2016.
“But after a few years we came to the conclusion that this is not the case. Not a single experienced skydiver will jump into pitch darkness, in the rain, at the moment when the wind hits your face at a speed of three hundred kilometers per hour, in shoes and a raincoat. It's just very risky."
In total, FBI agents interviewed hundreds of people, more than a thousand suspects were involved in the case. Some of them were indicated by psychics, some by family members of the suspects.
FBI sketches - Cooper's appearance in age progression.
In July 2016 - after 44 years, seven months and 18 days of fruitless investigation - the bureau announced that it was suspending the investigation. Moreover, the material evidence in this case has not increased much.
Yes, in 1980, part of the ransom surfaced - eight-year-old Brian Ingram found a half-rotted package containing $ 5,800 in a backpack on the banks of the Columbia River, near Vancouver, Washington. The serial numbers corresponded to the banknotes used for the ransom. The FBI combed the surrounding area, but in vain.
In 2011, titanium particles were found on a tie left by DeB Cooper on board. This made it possible to conclude that he worked either in the metallurgical or in some kind of chemical production. Here, perhaps, all the traces. (Analysis of the fingerprints left on the plane yielded nothing.)
The FBI has suspended the investigation. But nothing could stop those who like to solve criminal secrets (after all, you can earn extra money on this).
List of "Coopers"
Candidates for the role of "DeB Cooper" included a treasurer working for a local airline, a grocery store employee who mysteriously disappeared before Thanksgiving in 1971, veteran airmen from Vietnam, and even a college teacher.
After the hijacking of the plane and the unfolding large-scale "hunt for a man" within several weeks, the editors of American newspapers received six letters, allegedly from "Dee B Cooper".
In three letters, the text was folded using words cut from newspapers and magazines, two were typed, and another was handwritten. Five letters were signed by "Dee Bee Cooper", the author of the sixth signed without fancy - "Rich Man." The FBI analyzed the letters and concluded that this was the work of scammers.
In 1985, the book "Dee B. Cooper: How It Was Really" was published. It was based on an interview with a woman named Clara, who claimed to have met the hijacker two days after the incident, and then fell in love with him.
In 2000, US News and World Report reported that a certain Duyan Weber told his wife on his deathbed that he was Cooper. The FBI examined his fingerprints and DNA and identified him as an impostor.
Seven years later, a certain Lyle Christiansen contacted the detectives of a private agency, claiming that his brother Kenny, “without any doubt,” is the very Cooper.
In 2015, the media suddenly became fascinated by the person of a certain Dick Lepsi, a grocery store manager who had gone missing two years before the hijacking of a Northwest Orient Airlines plane. It seems that his relatives identified him from a photograph. And by the way, the tie was a must-have item for the shop assistants.
There was also a certain Barbara Dayton, who claimed that she was "Dee B Cooper" - before undergoing gender reassignment surgery.
Composite image of Cooper and a photo of Rackstrow.
In August 2018, Indiana retiree Rick Sherwood, a former military ransomware, made a sensational statement that he was able to decipher the secret messages contained in the very letters that the newspapermen received immediately after the incident. And moreover - to establish who was hiding behind the pseudonym "Dee B Cooper". Allegedly, this is a California resident named Robert Rockstro, a pilot, a veteran of the Vietnam War.
Interestingly, the retired codebreaker was not acting out of his own interest, but at the instigation of documentary filmmaker Thomas Colbert, a California producer who had been on the Cooper case for over a decade.
In 2016, Colbert published a book where he argued that Robert Rockstro was "DB Cooper" and even claimed to know three accomplices of the air pirate. Colbert's law enforcement retirement team interviewed family members, former colleagues and friends of Rockstro.
Rockstro was also under suspicion of the FBI. But back in the 1980s, the bureau struck him off the Cooper List. Colbert argues that the FBI does not want to investigate the evidence he has collected, since then it will have to admit that amateur investigators are smarter than federal agents.
Their name is legion
In January 2019, another book was published in the USA, the author of which claims to reveal the "secret of the century."
Joe Koenig, a former Michigan police officer, titled his opus, In Search of the Truth: I Am Dee B. Cooper. The book is based on the testimony of a certain Karl Lorin, who believes that the most famous air pirate in America was his friend Walter Recka, who served in the airborne forces.
Reka died in 2014 at the age of 79, but his friend Lauryn taped hours of conversations during which the paratrooper revealed details of the hijacking that were not released to the FBI.
In short, the odyssey of "DeB Cooper" unfolded as follows - jumped from an airplane, landed on a dry tree, broke his leg. But in the end he managed to get out to people and get through to his accomplices.
"The FBI continues to receive information from members of the public, but to date, none of these clues have led to an accurate identification of the hijacker," the Bureau commented on the figure of a new candidate for the "DP Coopers".
Motive
A friend of Walter Rivers, commenting on the reasons that forced the former parachutist to commit a crime, recalls that he often said: "Better to die than live in poverty."
And what motivates the myriad of amateur explorers that are trying (so far unsuccessfully) to get to the bottom of the innermost secrets that "DB Cooper" may have already taken with him to the grave?
He used all the romantic elements of the crime - no harm, no sacrifice, skillful execution, says journalist Jeffrey Gray.
“At the time, people wanted to see this person as a hero who could do something by challenging the authorities. It was a way to get rid of the feeling of my own helplessness. "Dee B Cooper was able to take the levers of control and direct the great drama," says Gray.
The owner of a bar in the area where "DeB Cooper" is supposed to exit the woods to people, formulated this idea in an interview with one American journalist more openly: “The government always fucks us. And then finally someone fucked the government."
Author: Alexey Bausin
