DB Cooper

[The Brain]

I know all about DB Cooper thanks to a TV documentary I saw recently.

[Ideologue]

He said "Fly to Mexico", but jumped out over the Pacific northwest?

That part would qualify as a clever ruse if he didn't brain himself on a redwood.

[Razgovory]

I read an article about the new lead, but I don't buy it.  I agree with Money that Cooper didn't survive the jump, and his skeleton is probably in the middle of some vast wilderness, where animals have long since scattered the bones by now.

Agree.  I don't necessarily think he  lacked parachute experience.  He could easily have done skydiving or been a paratrooper and simply made poor decisions, or felt that he'd rather risk death then go to jail.  The fact that the chose to hijack a plane in the first place tells me he prone to making bad decisions.

[Drakken]

I believe he didn't. The FBI noted the serial number of each and every bill in the ransom, and not one has turned out into circulation since. Not one.

Either he died, or he survived but lost his ransom cases in the fall.

[Drakken]

Agree.  I don't necessarily think he  lacked parachute experience.  He could easily have done skydiving or been a paratrooper and simply made poor decisions, or felt that he'd rather risk death then go to jail.  The fact that the chose to hijack a plane in the first place tells me he prone to making bad decisions.

Yet he chose to hijack in the only model of civilian aircraft that could fly with its aft airstair apparatus open. The guy knew how to hedge his risks.

[Caliga]

DNA Doesn't Match D.B. Cooper

All that excitement for nothing: DNA tests from a new suspect in the D.B. Cooper case failed to match DNA from a necktie that the criminal left on the airplane he hijacked in 1971. While it doesn't necessarily rule out the new suspect—the tie itself could have contained someone else's DNA if, say, it were borrowed—it makes proof significantly less likely. The new suspect was first identified when a woman, Lynn Doyle Cooper, came forward to say she had childhood memories that suggested her uncle was the hijacker. She also provided fingerprints to the FBI, but those tests were inconclusive.

Read it at Los Angeles Times
August 9, 2011 6:44 AM

[Razgovory]

Eh, a forty year old tie that has been handled by dozens of FBI agents over the years is probably not going to give good DNA samples.  Still, I don't think this is the guy.

[Caliga]

Eh, a forty year old tie that has been handled by dozens of FBI agents over the years is probably not going to give good DNA samples.  Still, I don't think this is the guy.

Unless they find the guy's skeleton (which like I said earlier, surely is no longer intact), this case is basically the same as Jack the Ripper now.  Nobody will ever be able to prove his identity, so every couple of years someone will come out with a new 'theory' which in reality is only an excuse to sell a book.

[viper37]

Eh, a forty year old tie that has been handled by dozens of FBI agents over the years is probably not going to give good DNA samples.  Still, I don't think this is the guy.

Unless they find the guy's skeleton (which like I said earlier, surely is no longer intact), this case is basically the same as Jack the Ripper now.  Nobody will ever be able to prove his identity, so every couple of years someone will come out with a new 'theory' which in reality is only an excuse to sell a book.

I wonder if he'll appear in sci-fi shows 100 years from now...

[11B4V]

He's a dirt dart.

[jimmy olsen]

Sounds like a clue that should really cut down the number of suspects. 

http://overheadbin.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/23/8982109-40-years-later-new-evidence-emerges-in-db-cooper-case

40 years later, new evidence emerges in D.B. Cooper case


By Chris Ingalls, KING 5 News

This Thanksgiving marks the 40th anniversary of a legendary Northwest crime.

In 1971, skyjacker D.B. Cooper parachuted into the night sky over Washington and vanished.

Now, FBI agents have something they don't often get in a 40-year-old criminal case: new physical evidence.

It comes from the clip-on tie Cooper left behind on the hijacked plane, NBC affiliate KING 5 News reports.

For three years, a team of private scientists has been studying evidence from the Cooper case at the invitation of the Seattle office of the FBI.

"One of the most notable particles that we've found, that had us the most excited, was titanium metal," said lead scientist Tom Kaye.

He said the team identified the titanium on Cooper's tie using an electron microscope.

Titanium is used in things from golf clubs to cookware these days, but in 1971 it was extremely rare.

And, there's another thing.

"In 1971 there was a big upheaval in the titanium industry with the cancelling of the SST project, which happened to be at Boeing, and that laid a lot of people off in the industry. So Cooper could have been part of the fallout," said Kaye.

Boeing canceled its Super Sonic Transport project, one of the first civilian planes to use titanium, just months before the 1971 hijacking. Washington state was suddenly plunged into an economic crisis.

Could Cooper have been unemployed and so desperate that he would threaten to blow up a passenger jet and then parachute with $200,000 in ransom money?

Cooper made the ransom demand on a Thanksgiving Eve Portland-to-Seattle flight, claiming he had a bomb in his briefcase. When the plane landed at Sea-Tac airport, the FBI delivered the money and four parachutes. Cooper jumped from the Boeing 727 soon after it was in the air again, headed south.

"Because he wore a tie, we think he was an engineer or manager who went out on the shop floor regularly," said Kaye of Cooper's position in life.

Cooper was likely not a Boeing employee.

Kaye said the titanium is pure, not processed like the kind used in aircraft manufacture. Kaye's team believes he was probably employed at a titanium production or fabrication facility or a chemical plant. Chemical plants used titanium mixed with aluminum for their anti-corrosive properties. Kaye said aluminum particles were also found on Cooper's tie.

Kaye said the new details about Cooper are valuable to finding out the mysterious hijacker's identity.

"Coming up with a profile that narrows him down to hundreds of people instead of millions we think is pretty significant," he said.

Related: D.B. Cooper and other travel mysteries
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Does the FBI feel the same way?

The bureau's spokesperson in Seattle, Ayn Sandalo Dietrich, confirmed the FBI has received the team's new evidence, but won't say much else.

Agents made worldwide news this summer when they said there was promising circumstantial evidence. It pointed to a deceased Oregon man named LD Cooper. His family provided personal items that were tested by the FBI. They did not provide any positive link to the hijacking.


Kaye doesn't believe LD Cooper worked around titanium and he does not fit their profile.

Kaye's team has posted its findings for all to see on a website www.citizensleuths.com.

They're asking for input/information from members of the public.

[Siege]

He is probably reading this thread and laughing.

[Caliga]

He's dead, Jim.

[Strix]

He's dead, Jim.

Funny you mentioned that, I was watching a documentary on him and the last words he uttered as he left the plane were 'Dammit Jim, I am a doctor not a paratrooper'.

[jimmy olsen]

He's dead, Jim.

It would still be nice to know who did it though.