This interesting story started way back on 24th November 1971 from Portland airport, where a person carrying a briefcase booked a ticket from Portland to Seattle and went straight away to the plane, as it was a domestic flight and at that time there were no strict checking rules neither the luggage was checked thus helping the person to enter the plane easily.
This was a Northwest Orient Airlines Boeing 727 which had to reach Seattle in only 45 minutes. Dan Cooper named person having a Briefcase in hand got the seat of his choice and shortly the flight took off as normal routine, He was enjoying the last seat of the plane and ordered a drink for himself.
At 2:58 p.m. when the flight was on its way he called the air hostess named Florence Schaffner and give her a piece of paper, when the Airhostres read it she was shocked as it had a short message for her..
“MISS,I HAVE A BOMB HERE AND I WOULD LIKE YOU TO SIT BY ME”..
This lady when sat with him he opened his Briefcase and she saw a bomb having eight sticks of Dynamite and a detonator, in short, the plane was Hijacked.
Three Major demands
Dan Cooper had 3 demands The 1st one $200000 cash before 5 pm, pairs of parachutes, and Plane refueling at Seattle.
After asking for what he wanted he warned the lady that if she did anything silly she will blow up to the bomb. The Air hostess went to the captain of the plane and informed him of the hijack situation, a second air hostess name Tina Mucklow was handed over an intercom and asked to sit with the hijacker to communicate between Cooper and the pilot.
Remember this was the first plane hijack in American History for ransom. The authorities decided to fulfill all his demands because the intelligence agencies were sure that they will catch him once the passengers are free.
The 45 minutes flight was in the air for about 90 minutes and passengers were told that there are some technical issues while landing that is causing the delay.
In the meanwhile, all his demands were fulfilled at 5:45 pm plane landed and Cooper was provided with parachutes, a plane refuels truck, and the money was given to him whose serial numbers were marked by the authorities.
After receiving what he wanted he left all the passengers free and only the pilot and 2 crew members were left in the plane with him, it was night now and the pilot was asked to take place towards Mexico and instructed the pilot to open the landing Gears of the plane, altitude should be 10000 feet, and the speed should be 320 kph.
The pilot did as he said but asked him for refueling because Mexico was unreachable with this fuel. Cooper agreed to go to Reno(an American state) for refueling.
The security authorities were also trying to stay connected to the flight because they were trying to catch Cooper with money, at about 8:10 pm cooper asked Airhostres to go to the cockpit where all the members were sitting, the lady went and when she looks back she saw Cooper for the last time and he was wearing a parachute.
In the meanwhile, the stairs of the plane were lower and Cooper jumped you won’t believe that today after almost 50 years this case is only being discussed. After landing the plane was checked by the authorities but there was no sign of cooper and the Briefcase. This case is still unsolved in the history of the FBI
PUBLIC HELP
After all the efforts no clue was found of Cooper nor his briefcase thus finally FBI decided to take help from the citizens of the USA, his sketch was published in local newspapers and the marked serial numbers of the cash were also issued so they can get any kind of hint, FBI believed that he will use the money if he is alive but strangely no serial number of that currency was used all over the country.
HINT FOUND
After 9 years of the plane hijack finally in 1980, in Southern Washington near the Colombian river on a beach called Tina bar a little kid found some buried cash costing $ 5800. The kids’ parents informed the FBI luckily serial numbers of the cash found matched the currency given to Dan Cooper. As Tina Baar is 27 km away from the Drop point of the plane it is argued that Cooper buried it deliberately to dodge the investigating agencies.
This was the last time we had some news about this case, nobody has any kind of information about Dan Cooper whether he is dead or alive and what he did with the cash the mystery still goes on.
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