The Seattle Traveler

Last Friday, at Heritage Auction Galleries in Dallas, Texas, fifteen tattered $20 bills were sold for over $37,000.

What?  I thought the dollar was supposed to be worth LESS these days, not MORE!

Well, these were special bills — recovered from the 1971 D.B. Cooper skyjacking by an eight year old boy who was digging in the sand.  If you’ve lived around Seattle for a long time, you may be familiar with the story.  It sounds like a folk legend, but it’s all true.

On Wednesday, November 24th, 1971 a well-groomed gentleman by the name of Dan Cooper boarded Northwest Orient Flight #305 flying from Portland, Oregon to Seattle, Washington.  The plane was a Boeing 727-100, and it was the day before Thanksgiving.

Cooper was seated at the back of the plane, and shortly after take off handed a note to a Flight Attendant seated behind him.  Assuming that he was trying to give her his phone number, the Flight Attendant slipped the note into her pocket without looking at it.  Cooper impressed upon her the need to immediately read the note.  The note said:  "I have a bomb in my briefcase. I will use it if necessary. I want you to sit next to me. You are being hijacked."

Ransom demands included $200,000 in unmarked $20 bills, two sets of parachutes (four in total), and instructions for delivering the items to Sea-Tac Airport.  Fail to meet the demands, and Cooper would blow up the plane.  A series of maneuvering and communication followed, and plans were put into motion.

The plane was put into a holding pattern over Puget Sound while the money and parachutes were rounded up, and although the bills were not “marked” they did have nearly consecutive serial numbers.  All the bills were fun through a system to create a microfilm of the bill and the serial number.  Parachutes were found at a local skydiving schools.

Meanwhile, back on the plane, Cooper was drinking bourbon and soda, and according to Flight Attendant reports, but for the fact that he was skyjacking the plane, was otherwise described as a nice, gracious man.  FBI investigators later clamed that the man was obscene and offensive.

Once the money and parachutes were taken to Sea-Tac, the plane landed and taxied to a remote section of the airport.  The items were delivered to the plane via the aft air stairs, and shortly after that, all the passengers and one of the Flight Attendants.  Various attempts were made to keep the plane on the ground, but it was eventually re-fueled and took off again – destination, Mexico City, with a stop in Reno, Nevada, to re-fuel.  Cooper ordered that the cabin remain depressurized.

Continuing reading to find out what happened

Shortly into the flight, Cooper open the aft air stairs door, lowered the stairs, and jumped out of the plane (illustrated in diagram at left).  He has not been seen or heard from since, and despite exhaustive searches and thousands of leads, no evidence has revealed his true identity nor his whereabouts.  His name was reported in the press as D.B. Cooper, and that name remains the moniker of this mysterious character.

In February 1980, the bills that were sold last week were found while 8-year old Brian Ingram was digging in the sand along the Columbia River (it divided Washington and Oregon).  Three bundled of twenties, in deteriorating condition, were turned over to the FBI.  Serial number were matched, and indeed, it was from the ransom money.  The FBI kept some, the insurance company that paid the ransom kept some, and the rest went to Ingram – although I’m not entirely sure how or why.The sale last week represented only a portion of those that he has in his possession. 

The FBI is adamant in their position that D.B. Cooper did not survive.  None the less, they have followed all leads that have come in.  The age progression photo composite at right shows how it is believed Cooper would have aged — if he had survived.

While we should never forget that this was a violent, criminal act, the urban legends and folk lore that surround DB Cooper are too alluring to resist.  I just sometimes wonder. . . could he really have survived?

Photo credits:  photos of DB Cooper are from the US Government and are in the public domain; illustration of parachuting from wikimedia

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