51 years since the mysterious D.B. Cooper skyjacking

Amanda Arden

2 years ago

FILE--This undated artist sketch shows the skyjacker known as D.B. Cooper from recollections of the passengers and crew of a Northwest Airlines jet he hijacked between Portland and Seattle on Thanksgiving eve in 1971. Nearly 50 years after skyjacker D.B. Cooper vanished out the back of a Boeing 727 into freezing Northwest rain, wearing a business suit, a parachute and a pack with $200,000 in cash, a crime historian is conducting a dig on the banks of the Columbia River in Vancouver, Washington, in search of evidence. (AP-Photo/File)

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – It happened 51 years ago Thursday. A man the world knows as D.B. Cooper walked into the Portland International Airport the day before Thanksgiving, paid $20 for a one-way ticket to Seattle and became the most infamous skyjacker in U.S. history.

The case has never been solved.

In 1971, Dan Cooper (who became known as D.B. Cooper) hijacked that jet bound for Seattle and when it landed, Cooper exchanged the passengers for $200,000 and four parachutes.

Cooper demanded to be flown to Mexico. While flying in the escape plane over Southwest Washington, he parachuted out, vanishing into thin air with the money.

He was never seen again.

However, two weeks ago, an amateur D.B. Cooper investigator revealed new leads in the case.

Eric Ulis shared a picture of Vince Peterson who died in 2002. Ulis said he traced a rare form of titanium found on the black tie that D.B. Cooper left on the Boeing 727 to a laboratory where Peterson worked near Pittsburgh, Penn.