Operational time is one evening in 1971. Investigative time ran forty-five years.
Dates below prefer FBI and airline paper over suspect folklore.
Timeline
- Flight 305 hijacked
Dan Cooper boards at Portland, presents a threat after takeoff and demands $200,000 and four parachutes.
- Seattle ransom and release
Money and chutes come aboard at Sea-Tac. Passengers leave. The 727 departs toward Mexico with a Reno fuel stop planned.
- Reno landing
The aircraft arrives with aft stairs down and Cooper gone. NORJAK opens.
- Composites issued
FBI sketches of the hijacker circulate nationwide. The press name D.B. Cooper is already fixed.
- McCoy comparison
Richard Floyd McCoy Jr. hijacks a different flight and is widely compared to Cooper. The FBI does not adopt him as the Flight 305 jumper.
- Tena Bar find
Brian Ingram uncovers about $5,800 in ransom $20s on a Columbia River sandbar near Vancouver, Washington.
- Cooper vane era
Aft-stair locks on 727s and tighter screening are the lasting operational answer to the jump method used on Flight 305.
- Citizen suspects
Books and television recycle names — among them Duane Weber and others — without producing a charge.
- FBI suspends NORJAK
The Bureau says the case is no longer an active investigation. The file remains unsolved.
- Private paper
Amateur groups continue to argue jump coordinates and DNA on the Tena Bar bills. No court has named Cooper.
After 2016 the official paper thins and the anniversary features thicken.
Public-record encyclopedia. Not legal advice. Not a how-to. Graphic detail is withheld. Wars belong in a separate atlas.