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By Jasmine Laws
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The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has released new files relating to one of the most famous unsolved cases in U.S. history.
The DB Cooper case refers to the mystery of a man who hijacked a plane in 1971 and then disappeared out of the back of it with a parachute and ransom money, never to be found by investigators.
The FBI refers to the case as one of its "great unsolved mysteries," and the story has since gone on to inspire movies, books, and podcasts.
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The newly released files detail the FBI's investigation into one of the hundreds of suspects they spoke to.
The DB Cooper Case
On November 24, 1971, a man who went by the name of Dan Cooper approached a Northwest Orient Airlines counter in Portland, Oregon. He bought a one-way ticket to Seattle.
While the flight was waiting to take off, he ordered a drink—a bourbon and soda—and after 3 p.m. local time, handed the stewardess a note stating he had a bomb in his briefcase and wanted her to sit with him.
Once she sat down, Cooper showed her inside the case, which contained a mass of wires and red sticks, and told her to note down what he said.
She then took the note to the pilot, which detailed that Cooper wanted four parachutes and $200,000 in 20-dollar bills—a sum equivalent to around $1.6 million today.
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When the flight landed in Seattle, the hijacker let the 36 passenger's off in exchange for the parachutes and the money. He kept several crew members on board and then, under Cooper's orders, the plane set off for Mexico City.
Somewhere between Seattle and Reno, Nevada, at around 8 p.m. the hijacker jumped out of the back of the plane with the parachute and ransom money. The pilots were able to land the plane safety. Cooper disappeared and his fate remains a mystery to this day.
Over the next 25 years, the FBI considered more than 800 suspects. The bureau has said it could be the case that Cooper didn't survive the landing, as the parachute he used could not be steered and his clothing and footwear were not suitable for a rough landing.
It is also thought he would have landed in a heavily wooded area, which would have made for a particularly tricky landing.
In 1980, a young boy also found a rotting package of 20-dollar bills which matched the ransom money serial numbers, an update which boosted confidence in the theory.
Who Was DB Cooper?
It is still not clear who the plane hijacker Cooper was, although the FBI files indicate that investigators spoke to a former pilot from western Maine called Raymond Sidney Russell, who also went by R. Sid Russell and Sid Russell in 1972.
The files do not appear to state how Russell caught the attention of the FBI in regard to this case, but he appears across a significant amount of the hundreds of pages of information the bureau has now made public.
Russell is described in the documents as being a divorced white male, 5 foot 8 inches in height, weighing around 160 pounds, with graying brown hair and gray eyes and a scar on his left temple. He was born in Maine in 1923.
Russell told the FBI that he had moved to Maine with his mother in the summer of 1971 from California and not been back to the west coast since the time of his interview in September 1972.
Per the files, he was an inspector for Boeing aircraft in 1947 and 1948, and he used to fly with Flying Tiger Airlines out of Seattle until he quit in February 1963.
He also said he worked as an air traffic controller in Seattle for the Federal Aviation Administration, and told the FBI investigators that he had never been in a Boeing 727—the type of plane that was hijacked—and denied any involvement in the incident.
Russell is also noted to be a "top skier" and a former instructor of the sport, and that he also had "alcoholism problems" and was a "member of Alcoholics Anonymous" in California.
According to the FBI's documents, some people investigators spoke to believed Russell was "entirely capable of hijacking," and stated that he was in Seattle about the time of the incident, and that he had also left the city "suddenly" around the same time.
Per the files, a number of accounts also noted that Russell had a strong resemblance to the identification of Cooper.
Another person said he was "at home in the woods" and that he was a "nomad type, who would take off at a moment's notice to go anywhere," although they doubted that Russell would have been involved in the plane hijacking as the man said he was "very law abiding."
In another interview, FBI investigators were told that while the person believed Russell could "come up with the idea of hijacking a 727 and parachuting out," they could not "imagine him actually doing it."
On a document dated November 1972, at the bottom of a handwritten note reads "eliminate Russell," suggesting that the FBI did not believe he should be further pursued as a suspect in the case, leaving the question of who Cooper was a mystery.
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