The Unsolved Mystery of D. B. Cooper: The Man Who Jumped from Flight 305

On Thanksgiving Eve in 1971, a polite man in a dark suit boarded a plane in Portland, ordered a bourbon and soda, and handed the flight attendant a note that launched one of the greatest mysteries in American history. In this episode, we investigate the legend of "Dan Cooper," the unidentified hijacker who seized Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305 by claiming he had a bomb in his briefcase. We recount the tense hours during which Cooper successfully demanded $200,000 in negotiable currency and four parachutes, eventually releasing the passengers in Seattle in exchange for the ransom.

We detail the dramatic second leg of the flight, where Cooper ordered the crew to fly low toward Mexico City before lowering the Boeing 727’s rear airstair and parachuting into the freezing night over the Washington wilderness. Despite an extensive 45-year FBI investigation and a list of over a thousand suspects—including Green Berets and recreational pilots—Cooper was never seen again. Join us as we analyze the limited physical evidence, such as the clip-on tie left on seat 18-E and the decaying ransom money found on a riverbank in 1980, to understand how this remains the only unsolved case of air piracy in commercial aviation history.