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Quick answers
Who was D.B. Cooper?
An unidentified man who used the ticket name Dan Cooper on Northwest Orient Flight 305 on 24 November 1971. D.B. Cooper is a press error that stuck. No one was convicted. The FBI suspended the case in 2016.
What did he demand and receive?
He demanded $200,000 and four parachutes. Northwest Orient delivered that sum in $20 bills whose serial numbers were recorded, plus the chutes, at Seattle-Tacoma before the passengers were released.
Where did he leave the aircraft?
After the Seattle departure, over southwestern Washington, using the Boeing 727’s aft airstairs. The FBI’s first search box centred near Ariel; later wind models widened the corridor. No confirmed landing site was found.
Was any of the ransom found?
Yes. On 10 February 1980 Brian Ingram found about $5,800 in deteriorating $20 bills on Tena Bar, a Columbia River beach near Vancouver, Washington. The FBI matched serial numbers to the ransom list. The rest of the money remains unaccounted for.
Did the FBI identify a suspect?
The Bureau investigated thousands of names and publicly discussed several persons of interest. None was charged as Cooper. Richard McCoy, a 1972 hijacker, was a recurring comparison and was not adopted as the Flight 305 jumper.
Why is the case still unsolved?
No body, unused chute or unused ransom cache was authenticated. Witnesses aged. The 1980 river find did not lead to a person. In 2016 the FBI said active investigation was no longer justified.
Investigation was a ground search, a serial-number watch and a long suspect grind.
It is described here as what agencies did after the fact, not as a guide to evasion.
Agencies
- Federal Bureau of Investigation — Lead on NORJAK: interviews, composites, ransom serials, Tena Bar authentication and the 2016 suspension.
- Northwest Orient Airlines — Delivered the ransom, preserved crew reports and aircraft data, and cooperated on the 727’s aft-stair problem.
- Local sheriffs and state police — Washington and Oregon ground searches in the first weeks, later support on the Columbia River find.
- Federal Aviation Administration — Airworthiness and screening follow-up, including the aft-stair lock later called the Cooper vane.
What followed
- Secure the aircraft at Reno
Agents and local officers treated Flight 305 as a crime scene. Cooper was already gone; the stairs were down.
- Record the money
Serial numbers taken before Seattle became the only later proof that some bills had re-entered the world.
- Search the corridor
Timber and river country under the reconstructed track were walked in 1971 and revisited as models changed.
- Issue composites
Nationwide circulation of the sketches produced thousands of names and no charge.
- Authenticate Tena Bar
In 1980 the FBI matched Ingram’s bills to the ransom list and kept the rest of the money on a watch that never paid.
- Suspend the file
In 2016 the Bureau said witnesses and leads no longer justified active work. Unsolved remained the status.
Turning points
- The empty stairs at Reno — Once Cooper was gone, the case became a missing-person hunt attached to a completed hijacking.
- The 1980 river bills — Proof that part of the ransom had left the bag and reached the Columbia — and still no name.
- The 2016 suspension — An official end to active NORJAK that amateur researchers have not been able to reopen in court.
The investigation proved a jump and failed to name the jumper.
Public-record encyclopedia. Not legal advice. Not a how-to. Graphic detail is withheld. Wars belong in a separate atlas.