A parachute that may be connected to infamous hijacker D.B. Cooper is reigniting interest in the only unsolved hijacking in U.S. aviation history.
The big picture: A series of stories marking the 53rd anniversary last weekend of D.B. Cooper’s infamous heist highlights the 2022 discovery of a modified parachute on the property of a former suspect.
State of play: Despite years of investigation, the FBI closed the D.B. Cooper case in 2016, leaving it officially unsolved.
Driving the news: D.B. Cooper sleuth and YouTuber Dan Gryder found the parachute two years ago on a North Carolina property that belonged to the family of the late Richard McCoy II, the Cowboy State Daily reported.
McCoy, known for an almost identical heist months after Cooper’s, had long been a suspect.
He was later killed in a police shootout after escaping custody in 1974.
His children believe their father was Cooper, per the Cowboy State Daily.
Catch up quick: A man calling himself Dan Cooper hijacked a plane en route from Portland to Seattle on Nov. 24, 1971.
In exchange for $200,000 and four parachutes, he released the flight’s 36 passengers in Seattle, directed the plane to take off again, and jumped into the night somewhere between Seattle and Portland.
Bundles of ransom cash washed up along the Columbia River in 1980, but no trace of Cooper was ever found.
The intrigue: Gryder told the Cowboy State Daily that he was contacted by the FBI after he posted videos about his find and that he and McCoy’s son, Rick McCoy, traveled to Richmond, Virginia, in September 2023, where FBI agents took the parachute, a harness and a skydiving logbook into evidence.
The FBI in Seattle responded to Axios’ request for comment with a link to a 2016 statement that says individuals who find “specific physical evidence” related to the parachutes or money taken are asked to contact their local FBI field office.