After 45 years, FBI closes investigation into unsolved 'DB Cooper' hijacking

SEATTLE (KOMO) - Forty-five years after an unidentified man parachuted from the rear of a hijacked jetliner and into folklore with $200,000 in cash, the FBI is officially closing its investigation into the famous "DB Cooper" case that has transfixed people around the world ever since.

FBI spokesman Ayn Dietrich-Williams said Tuesday the still-unsolved case was closed "in order to focus on other investigative priorities." She called the DB Cooper hijacking case over Western Washington "one of the longest and most exhaustive investigations in our history."

The mystery surrounding the hijacking of a Northwest Orient Airlines flight in November 1971 by a still-unknown individual resulted in significant international attention and a decades-long manhunt.

The suspect, who called himself Dan Cooper, was later misidentified in media reports as "D.B. Cooper," and the name stuck. He boarded the flight in Portland for a flight to Seattle on the night of Nov. 24, 1971, and commandeered the plane, claiming he had dynamite.

In Seattle, he demanded and got $200,000 and four parachutes and demanded to be flown to Mexico. Somewhere over southwestern Washington, he jumped out the plane's tail exit with two of the chutes.

Several people have claimed to be Cooper over the years but were dismissed on the basis of physical descriptions, parachuting experience and, later, by DNA evidence recovered in 2001 from the cheap tie the skyjacker left on the plane.

In 1980, a boy walking near the Columbia River found $5,800 of the stolen money, in tattered $20 bills.

Fascination over the unsolved case continues and thousands of tips have continued to pour into the FBI. However, none to date have resulted in a definitive identification of the hijacker.

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