One afternoon a day before Thanksgiving in 1971, a guy calling himself Dan Cooper (the media mistakenly called him D.B Cooper) boarded Northwest Airlines flight #305 in Portland bound for Seattle. He was wearing a dark suit and a black tie and was described as a business-executive type. While in the air, he opened his brief case showing a bomb to the flight attendant and hijacked the plane. The plane landed in Seattle where he demanded 200K in cash, four parachutes and food for the crew before releasing all the passengers. With only three pilots and one flight attendant left on board, they took off from Seattle with the marked bills heading south while it was dark and lightly raining. In the 45 minutes after takeoff, Cooper sent the flight attendant to the cockpit while donning the parachute, tied the bank bag full of twenty dollar bills to himself, lowered the rear stairs and somewhere north of home Portland jumped into the night. When the plane landed with the stairs down, they found the two remaining parachutes and on the seat Cooper was sitting in, a black tie.

Jets, a helicopter and a c-130 aircraft had been scrambled from the closest air force base to follow Cooper's plane. The military was called in days after the hijacking and approximately 1,000 troops searched the suspected jump zone on foot and in helicopters. the Boeing 727 used in the hijacking was flown out over the ocean and the stairs lowered and weights dropped in an attempt to determine when Cooper jumped. The SR-71 super-secret spy plane was sent in to photograph the entire flight path but no sign of D.B. Cooper was ever discovered.

Nine years later in 1980 just north of Portland on the Columbia River, a young boy named Brian Ingram was digging a fire pit in the sand at a place called Tena Bar. He uncovered three bundles of cash a couple inches below the surface, with rubber bands still intact. There was a total of $5800, the Cooper serial numbers matched, and the first evidence since 1971 came to light. The FBI searched and analyzed the beach, the river was dredged by Cooper hunters and the theories on how the money got there supercharged the legend of D.B. Cooper.

Decades passed, Cooper became famous in book, movie and song. In 2007, special agent Larry Carr took on his favorite case with the restriction not to waste government time or money pursuing it. Agent Carr brilliantly decided the way around the problem was to treat the hijacking like one of his bank robbery cases - to get as much information out to the public as possible. He released previously unknown facts about the case and the Cooper frenzy started anew. In 2008 the Cooper research team came together to take up the challenge and was given special access to investigate the case. This website is the result of that three year investigation.

It is a huge public debate if Cooper died in the jump or not. Experienced skydivers say he would have died if it was his first jump but if he was an expert, no problem. One experience parachutist believed that anyone who had six or seven practice jumps could accomplished the jump. The cold weather may or may not have killed him in the woods even if he landed ok. no body or parachute was ever found.

He requested "front and back parachutes" = novice. He turned down instructions on how to use the parachute = experienced. He picked the non-steerable military parachute = novice. The military chute could better withstand the exit speed of the plane = experienced. He put the parachute on like he knew what he was doing = experienced. He took the reserve chute that was sewn closed and non-functional = novice.

find is problematic because it is 20 miles away from the town of Ariel, Washington where the drop zone analysis completed in 1971 said he jumped. In order to get the money on to Tena Bar, several theories are in play. First is the Washougal washdown theory, based on the idea that the money had to wash first down smaller rivers, then into the Columbia River in order to end up on Tena Bar. Second is that the FBI flight path was incorrect and Cooper actually landed on Tena Bar and buried the money. Third is that Cooper or someone else buried the money on Tena Bar to throw off the FBI.

The flight path map in the FBI archive has no information on who drew the flight path or when it was created. The flight path as drawn is thought to be from the detailed analysis of radar data and flight recorder discussed in the FBI transcripts. The FBI path does NOT fly over Tena Bar or the Washougal area. The money found on Tena Br forces the flight path debate because it would be much easier to explain the money find if Cooper flew over Tena Bar and jumped, or flight #305 flew over the Washougal River and Cooper's ransom money ended up washing down stream.

Severe possibilities have been put forth. The bank bag protected them for years in the river and then rotted away before the bills did. Cooper lost the money when he landed on Tena Bar in the dark. someone else buried the money there.

recognized Tacoma from the air = local. He would be an idiot to hijack an airplane where he could possibly be recognized = not local. He made the very unusual request for "negotiable american currency" unlike most americans = not from this country.

Roots, tumbling downstream, dredging?

This case remains unsolved. comment your theories.