boarded a routine flight from Portland to Seattle.
He ordered a drink, calmly handed a note to a flight attendant, and claimed he had a bomb. What followed was one of the boldest and most baffling crimes in American history.
After demanding $200,000 in cash and four parachutes, Cooper hijacked the plane, released the passengers, and vanished into the night—leaping from the aircraft somewhere over the Pacific Northwest. No confirmed sightings. No arrest. No body. Just fragments of money found years later along a riverbank.
More than fifty years on, the mystery remains unsolved.
In this episode of Three Voices One Crime, we break down every known detail: the timeline of the hijacking, the FBI’s massive manhunt, the suspects who almost fit, the evidence that didn’t, and the theories that still divide investigators. Was D.B. Cooper a trained skydiver? A desperate criminal? Or did he pull off the only unsolved skyjacking in U.S. history?
Sources:
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). “The FBI Vault: D.B. Cooper.”
FBI Records & Vault Files (case summaries, evidence, suspect lists).
• Federal Bureau of Investigation. “NORJAK: The D.B. Cooper Hijacking.”
Official FBI case overview and historical context.
• Geoffrey Gray. Skyjack: The Hunt for D.B. Cooper.
Crown Publishing Group, 2011.
• Robert M. Blevins. Into the Blast: The True Story of D.B. Cooper.
CreateSpace Independent Publishing, 2019.
• Bruce A. Smith & Richard Tosaw. D.B. Cooper and Flight 305.
Mountain News Press, 2016.
• The Oregonian. “D.B. Cooper: 40+ Years of Theories.”
Investigative reporting and regional analysis.
• Smithsonian Magazine. “The Unsolved Mystery of D.B. Cooper.”
Historical and forensic discussion.
• History.com Editors. “D.B. Cooper Hijacking.”
A&E Television Networks.
• National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
Aircraft data and flight-related technical analysis.