A passenger vanished after parachuting from a Boeing 727 with ransom money.
Updated 10 Aug 2026
On 24 November 1971, a passenger using the name Dan Cooper hijacked Northwest Orient Flight 305 between Portland and Seattle. After claiming to have a bomb, he demanded $200,000, four parachutes, and the release of the passengers. [1]
The aircraft departed Seattle with a reduced crew, and Cooper later parachuted into the night somewhere over the Pacific Northwest. A small portion of the ransom was found in 1980, but Cooper’s identity and fate have never been established. [2]
5 sourced milestones
Major events in the case, shown in chronological order.
A passenger using the name Dan Cooper claimed to have a bomb aboard Northwest Orient Flight 305 and demanded money and four parachutes.
Source: FBI ↗After receiving $200,000 and the parachutes in Seattle, the hijacker released the passengers and ordered the aircraft back into the air.
Source: FBI ↗A child found $5,800 in deteriorating twenty-dollar bills beside the Columbia River; their serial numbers matched the ransom money.
Source: FBI ↗The FBI stopped actively allocating resources to the case while continuing to accept specific physical evidence connected to the parachutes or ransom.
Source: FBI ↗The FBI announced that it was redirecting resources from the D. B. Cooper case after decades of investigation, while preserving the evidence and continuing to accept specific physical evidence connected to the hijacking.
Source: FBI ↗1 video
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