Overview
- On Nov. 24, 1971, a man using the name Dan Cooper hijacked a Northwest Orient 727, obtained $200,000, and parachuted over the Pacific Northwest, leaving an unsolved FBI case.
- Deseret News resurfaced archival reporting that chronicled the event and its aftermath, set against a period when the U.S. recorded 159 hijackings between 1961 and 1972.
- A portion of the ransom totaling $5,800 surfaced on a Columbia River shoreline in 1980 and has since fueled collecting, with authenticated bills selling at auction.
- Suspects such as Richard Floyd McCoy and Williams “Wolfgang” Gossett have been proposed over the years, yet none have been definitively tied to the hijacker.
- The Daily Mail is promoting a newsletter that claims a new suspect narrative, though the FBI closed its active investigation in 2016 and no verified breakthrough has been reported.