D. B. Cooper, also known as Dan Cooper, was an unidentified man who hijacked Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305, a Boeing 727 aircraft, in United States airspace on November 24, 1971. During the flight from Portland, Oregon, to Seattle, Washington, Cooper told a flight attendant he had a bomb, demanded $200,000 in ransom and requested four parachutes upon landing in Seattle. After releasing the passengers in Seattle, Cooper instructed the flight crew to refuel the aircraft and begin a second flight to Mexico City, with a refueling stop in Reno, Nevada. About thirty minutes after taking off from Seattle, Cooper opened the aircraft's aft door, deployed the staircase, and parachuted into the night over southwestern Washington. Cooper's true identity and whereabouts have never been determined conclusively.
The Boeing 727 is an American narrow-body airliner that was developed and produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. After the heavier 707 quad-jet was introduced in 1958, Boeing addressed the demand for shorter flight lengths from smaller airports. On December 5, 1960, the 727 was launched with 40 orders each from United Airlines and Eastern Air Lines. The first 727-100 rolled out on November 27, 1962, first flew on February 9, 1963, and entered service with Eastern on February 1, 1964.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1972.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1971.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1975.
A Cooper vane is a mechanical aerodynamic wedge that prevents the ventral airstair of an aircraft from being lowered in flight.
John Roger Spottiswoode is a Canadian-British director, editor and writer of film and television.
An airstair is a set of steps built into an aircraft so that passengers may board and alight the aircraft. The stairs are often built into a clamshell-style door on the aircraft. Airstairs eliminate the need for passengers to use a mobile stairway or jetway to board or exit the aircraft, providing more independence from ground services. Some of the earliest aircraft to feature airstairs were the Martin 2-0-2 and Martin 4-0-4. Some models of the Douglas DC-3 were also retrofitted with airstairs. As airport infrastructure has developed, the need for airstairs has decreased, as jetways or mobile stairways are often available.
Ariel is an unincorporated community in Cowlitz County, Washington. Ariel is located 11 miles (18 km) northeast of the city of Woodland along Washington State Route 503, situated north of the Lewis River and on the northwest bank of Lake Merwin. The Ariel community is part of the Woodland School District, a K-12 school district of about 2,200 students.
Richard Floyd McCoy Jr. was an American aircraft hijacker. McCoy hijacked a United Airlines passenger jet for ransom in April 1972. Due to a similar modus operandi, McCoy has been proposed as the person responsible for the November 1971 hijacking of Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305, attributed to the still-unidentified "D. B. Cooper".
Cutaway is a 2000 American crime action television film about skydiving, co-written and directed by Guy Manos. The term "cut-away" is used frequently in the film, in reference to parachuting and also in reference to life in general. Cutaway stars Tom Berenger, Stephen Baldwin, Dennis Rodman, Maxine Bahns, Ron Silver, Casper Van Dien and Thomas Ian Nicholas. This was Rodman's third film. It aired on the USA Network on October 3, 2000.
D. B. Cooper is a media epithet used to describe an unidentified man who hijacked a Boeing 727 on November 24, 1971, extorted a US$200,000 ransom, and parachuted to an unknown fate. He was never seen again, and only $5,880 of the ransom money has been found. The incident continues to influence popular culture, and has inspired references in books, film, and music.
James Meade (1907–1995) was a British economist.
Frederick William Hahneman was a Honduras-born U.S. citizen convicted of hijacking Eastern Air Lines Flight 175 on May 5, 1972. The flight—scheduled from Allentown, Pennsylvania, to Miami, Florida, with a stop in Washington, D.C.—was hijacked by Hahneman. The hijacked plane landed twice in Washington, D.C., then once in New Orleans, where a change of planes was made due to a mechanical issue. The new plane was then flown into Honduran airspace, as demanded by Hahneman.
Trans World Airlines Flight 106 was a scheduled passenger flight from Phoenix, Arizona, to Chicago, Illinois. On November 27, 1971, the Boeing 727 servicing the flight was hijacked by three armed and wanted men at Albuquerque International Sunport in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and flown to Havana, Cuba.
The apparent success and instant notoriety of the hijacker known as D. B. Cooper in November 1971 resulted in over a dozen copycat hijackings within the next year all using a similar template to that established by Cooper. Like Cooper, the plan would be to hijack an aircraft, demand a ransom, and then parachute from that aircraft as a method of escape. To combat this wave of extortion hijackings, aircraft were fitted with eponymous "Cooper Vanes", specifically designed to prevent the aft staircase from being lowered in-flight. The Cooper Vane, as well as the widespread implementation of other safety measures such as the installation of metal detectors throughout American airports, would spell the end of the Cooper copycats.
