The Story of D.B. Cooper
On November 24th, 1971, the day before Thanksgiving, a man going by the name of DB Cooper boarded a plane in Portland, Oregon, bound for Seattle. By all accounts, DB Cooper was described as calm and well dressed, donning a homburg hat and a skinny tie affixed to a crisp white shirt with a mother-of-pearl tie tack, and carrying a sensible leather briefcase. Cooper calmly took his seat at the back of the plane, ordered a bourbon and water and lit a cigarette. Once the plane was in flight, he handed the young attractive stewardess a folded note. As the stewardess was accustomed to such gestures by gentlemen of this ilk, she assumed it was a typical come-on of a hotel address or phone number. The note however was not a cunning pick up line, but rather a written threat that Cooper was carrying a bomb in his briefcase, and a demand of a hefty ransom.
Upon landing in Seattle, Cooper’s demands of $200k in cash and a parachute were met without question, and delivered to the plane in exchange for the quiet release of all the passengers. Cooper kept the flight crew on board, instructing that the plane be refueled and chartered to Mexico. During the ordeal and negotiations, Cooper chain-smoked and drank many more bourbon high balls, and was reportedly polite and humorous to the flight crew, “a true gentleman” as one stewardess recounted. With the plane en route to Mexico, Cooper slipped into the parachute, tied the bags of cash to his waist and jumped out of the plane at 5,000 ft. into the cold, dark, Washington air.
Cooper vanished without a trace, and the FBI and police have spent the last 37 years actively searching for this elusive gentleman, amassing almost zero evidence of his existence. Neither the money nor the man was ever recovered. It’s a point of heated debate whether Cooper survived his legendary jump, but we like to think that he took that money straight to Mexico and is still there, probably known as Señor Cooper to the local senoritas and living the gentleman’s dream of tequila tacos, and tomfoolery.
