There was this case which really fill my head with questions and wonder, what happened to D.B. Cooper after he leapt off the Boeing 727 plane and vanished into thin air with 200,000$ in his hands. Where could he be right now? Could he be hiding somewhere near the Columbia River where a child found approximately 5,800$ in decaying 20 dolar bills? What do you think?

Was this the man in Prisonbreak series?

Here's a link on D.B.

Very interesting case indeed.

Edit: Apparently I'm unable to spell.

Hey, that is a great mystery. I had forgotten all about him!

I just watched a movie where three campers found Coopers body. But it wasn't factual. I did though watch a documentary show were an old fellow claimed to be Cooper and his wife confirmed it. I wish i could give a source but that was long ago. I believe that was him. He say's , "I survived the fall and got away with the money". I believed that was him.

Gee, was it Without a Paddle? I LOVE that movie!

Yes that's the movie. Im glad i watched it last night. I enjoy movies like that. I wish there was more of them. Cooper burned most of the money for heat but not all in the movie.

Yup, saved his partner's share for him. A funny "what if" on a legend.

He did appeared in Prison Break where a guy admitted he was Cooper, but it was innaccurate because he kept 5 million dollars under that silo.

The story of DB Cooper has always been somewhat interesting to me... he was a legend in my area since I grew up and still live in Seattle. He made his famous leap in 1972, which means I was only 5 when it happened, but I remember the blazing headlines in the newspapers and it being a favorite topic of speculation by all the adults around me. haha.

About the only thing I can say is that whether he lived or died, he'd have been almost impossible to find in the southern Cascades. In some ways, I kinda hoped he lived; if he did, he pulled off one of the most perplexing disappearing acts of all times. DB Cooper is definitely one of the all time greatest Unsolved Mysteries.

I know exactly where D.B. Cooper is .......... in the stomach of a very elderly black bear.

I have driven a lot (on the very few real) roads in that area. And it is very rugged and would be very difficult to make a safe parachute landing. Or to find our way out again. The western slopes of the Cascade Mountains has three different canopys to the forests. First is 100-150 foot old growth timber that can catch a parachute and leave you 80 feet up in the air. And I do not remember any reports of Cooper having any rope to climb out of the trees with. Then you have intermeadiate sized pine and fur trees that are so tight together it is hard to move thru on the ground, let alone decend through. Finally, the hardest thing to get through - the cascade brush. This is so thick you can hide an army brigade 150 feet off the freeway and they would not be seen.

I live on the edge of a hill overlooking a developed valley. And I have a very small patch of this brush infront of my apartment. It's only about 5 feet at most wide at the base. but when the leaves are out, you can not see any of the homes in the new housing development below. Shoot, at night the small patch is so thick you can't even see the lights of the houses below. And even in fall and winter, in the mountains, the brush, can go on for miles and stop vision just with its volume.

If Cooper tried to use dead reconing navigation, only being 5% off could have place his jump site 5 to 7 miles off of his jump zone. If jumping at a landmark, the stormy winds of that night could have drifted him miles away from his intended sites and into the high trees. If he tried to jump into one of the meadows in the area - that time of the year was hunting season. And many deer and elk parties set up camp in those meadows. Not good places to decend into.

If Cooper asked for military parachutes, as I heard at the time (we were getting live news bradcasts of the highjacking even in Eastern Washington) the canopy would have been olive-green. And nearly invisible (if in war, you do not want the enemy to see the collapsed chute and know where your airman is) to air searches. He was reported to be wearing loafers, shoes that could be torn off by the slipstream of the plane when jumping. (the flight attendent did not see any jump or heavy boots in the carry on luggage [the supposed bomb] Cooper had.) He was lightly dressed, and reportedly no overhead baggage that might have contained a heavy coat. Remember, it was a cold, windy and rainy night. Not a good time to be out unprepared. And he jumped into National Forest Service land, so other than a few NFS fire roads, few ways out.

Now the most interesting point is the money that drifted up in the Columbia River. Cooper's landing area is assumed to be around the area where the present road to Mt. St. Helen's is roughly located and to the south.There are several lakes Yale, Silver, and Werwin. Plus all kinds of rivers and creeks that eventually flow into the Columbia. So Cooper could have gone into water and drown when the parachute collapsed over him. Same thing that happened to a USAF F-15 pilot who went down in the Pacific off the Oregon coast several years ago. So part of the money could have drifted away from the main cache and eventually made it down to the Columbia. Or made it's way into a near by stream (were their reports of animal bite marks on the found money?) Another chance is that the container the money was in, came apart in the decent. Problem is that that would have scattered the money over a wider area. With hikers, hunters and bigfoot researchers around (if you have a De Lorme's topographical atlas and gazetteer Map of Washington State, check out the bigfoot symbol on page 33/B-7), and only that one package has ever been reported. And none of the rest has ever gone through the Federal Reserve Banks, with still has the serial number on a watch list. Which in it's own way is probibly the best indcation ol' Dan never made it out.

My personal believe is that Cooper came down in the middle growth of the forest canopy, and got hung up. Someplace near water. The taller trees hiding the parachute from aerial searchers. Then one of two things happened (1) after dying there, with time, the parachute or harness decayed and the body fell to the ground. (2) In desperation, Cooper released the buckles on the chute and fell to his death. In either way - Mr Cooper met Mr. Brown Bear.

Havn,t heard that name in ages! It sure was a big deal back at the time though, and there are so many thoughts and ideas as to what happened to him! I guess that one we might never get solved!

I was 17 and living in Spokane, Washington when the D.B. Cooper hijacking occurred.
Though Spokane is about 300 miles from the area where Cooper jumped, I was born in that area and our family often visited the area to see old neighbors.
Yep, it's very rugged and overgrown country.
I think Cooper died in his attempt. He may have landed in the broad Columbia River, which would have made a fine meal for catfish and other bottom feeders.
Or if he did land in the forest, I suspect he was squashed at high velocity against the canopy. His moss-overgrown corpse is probably hanging dozens of feet above the ground, nearly impossible to see. And in these forests, who looks up? You're too busy carefully choosing your next step to be looking up.
The nylon chute and web gear would have survived fairly well, even these 35 years later. But the body is reduced to probably a few bone fragments. Forest critters like to nibble on bones.
The money is rotted away, or nearly so --- provided he could even hang onto it.
Jumping from a plane at that speed, in that weather, would have torn off his glasses, shoes and anything he tried to grasp.
He was an idiot. Even if he landed successfully, he would have died of hypothermia under such conditions. In that region, that time of year, you need boots, wool pants, gloves, multiple layers of clothing and some basic survival gear just to survive the first few days.
Like most thieves, he spent a lot of time on planning to get the loot, but very little time on the getaway.
I saw a movie a few years ago, can't recall which one, but a master thief commented, "You can plan all you want, but there are 100 things that can go wrong with a heist, and if you can think of 50 of them you're a genius!"
He's absolutely right.
D.B. Cooper's plan didn't include a workable, reasonable getaway.

I am pretty sure they actually found the guy although it could not be proven. I was watching a documentary and this woman married a guy and stayed with him for like 30 years or whatever...

Any who not only did he fit the description of Cooper in his photos which were close to the sketches police made of Cooper but while he was in his death bed he admitted to his wife that he was in fact DB Cooper.

He did survive though they knew the general area where he would have been and it was searched immediately however there was no corpse and no body. Many experts also say that it is not entirely impossible to survive jumping from the altitude he did although you may suffer a few broken bones in the process.

There would be no reason why the old man in his death bed would lie about being Cooper and he certainly fit the description. Many officials actually believe that it is likely this man was in fact Cooper although it was never confirmed as he died some years before his wife had talked about it to people.

So, I just did a quick little research to see where it was exactly that DB Cooper was thought to have jumped and I always though it was more in the Cascade Mountains or the foothills. I was wrong. He was thought to have landed somewhere in Western Cowlitz Co. Cowlitz Co. is not in the foothills but more on the edge of the Pacific rainforests toward the ocean.

Even in November, that area is fairly mild weather wise. Just rainy drizzly and damp, but not often below freezing. It's a very temporate area. Cowlitz Co. is very very rural, heavily wooded, but in recent years, more and more people have been visiting the area for sport fishing, and other outdoor activities in towns near there. It's not as densely wooded as the foothills would be. Although there's no question that the forests are daunting at best.

If he'd managed to make it to the ground without any serious bodily injury he could have survived quite some time out there without giving over to the elements and hypothermia... even in November, it's just not cold enough most of the time. Finding temporary shelter in that area would be fairly simple too. There are a lot of vacant fishing cabins that he could have easily crawled into for a few days. To me, understanding that he jumped in Cowlitz Co. makes it MORE plausible that he did indeed survive if he made it to the ground alive.

" If he'd managed to make it to the ground without any serious bodily injury he could have survived quite some time out there without giving over to the elements and hypothermia... even in November, it's just not cold enough most of the time ... "
--- MissMelsWell

I was a survival instructor and search & rescue member in the 1970s, in eastern Washington.
However, I participated in searches in western Washington in environments much like you describe. Hypothermia, even among well-equipped searchers, was a constant danger.
It is often assumed that hypothermia is brought on by cold weather. The truth is, a person is in far greater danger of hypothermia in wet, moderately cold conditions, such as those found in the fall and spring.
Why?
Because rain soaks you to the skin. Snow, which comes with colder weather, may lie on your clothing but won't penetrate nearly as much in cold weather.
Also, in the fall and spring you're less likely to be properly dressed for a sudden dousing or temperature drop.
Many, many people have died from hypothermia because they went into wild places wearing only a T-shirt, windbreaker or light jacket. They were comfortable dressed this way during the day, but temperatures dropped when the sun went down, or they got caught in a chilling rainstorm.
Frankly, I've always found it more challenging (and miserable) to survive in cold, wet weather than in snow. Snow is an excellent insulator and, heaped into a pile, can be used to create a life-saving snow cave.
I've been in snow caves where the outside temperature was 10 below Zero Fahrenheit (-23.5 C), while the heat of my body and a small candle kept my snow cave at 30 F (-1 C).
D.B. Cooper was, by all accounts, lightly dressed when he left the aircraft. The wind chill of jumping from a plane in rain or damp weather would almost certainly start him down the road to hypothermia. Even if he was uninjured, he probably landed shivering. Rain, dew and damp would have quickly worsened his hypothermia.
If you're shivering uncontrollably, you're hypothermic.
Based on my outdoor experiences over the past 40 years, I believe he died of hypothermia or injuries sustained in the fall.
There's one more thing that leads me to believe this:
People love to brag.
Many, many crimes have been solved --- sometimes years later --- because some criminal just couldn't keep his mouth shut any longer and had to tell SOMEONE.
I could be wrong. Perhaps D.B. Cooper survived, escaped with the money and kept his mouth shut, but the odds are against it.

oh, don't get me wrong, I know what causes hypothermia and what kinds of conditions are really bad. I've lived in Western Wa. all my life (and a little while in Kittitas) I've sat miserably in boat on the damned Chehalis river near Winlock at 4am in December (I was married to a psychotic Steelhead fisherman for 14 years). It's cold, it's miserable, it's especially wet, and I'm aware that hypothermia is a real possibility. However, if you've just bailed from a 737 with a few hundred thou and you make it safely to the ground, it wouldn't be too hard to get to shelter in that area pretty quickly. There are tons of cabins and homes that aren't occupied year 'round to hide out in and warm up.

I'm not saying he DID survive, I just think it's not out of the realm of possibility.

Yep, it's possible. I just think it's not likely. No disrespect intended toward you, though.

Oh, I know about steelheaders! A crazy bunch, the lot of them. I accompanied a steelheader to fish the Snake River in Idaho. It was blowing horizontal snow and I must have made 500 casts in 8 hours, standing on cold, damp rocks. Not one strike! The steelheader got two strikes and thought it was a marvelous day!
Steelheaders are the only anglers I know that count strikes as well as fish. And if they get a fish once every few years, it's great fishing!
Absolutely nutso.
For those unfamiliar, a "Steelhead" is a sea-run Rainbow trout. They move down the rivers of the Pacific Northwest and spend a few years in the Pacific Ocean, getting big as a salmon. Then, after a few years at sea, they run back up the same river to spawn. They usually run around February, when the weather is at its worst.
Anglers who go after steelhead are rabid about their sport. They're far worse than golfers or pheasant hunters.

So, you were married to a steelheader?
Sheesh ... send me your address and I'll send you a sympathy card ... lol

I was 40 years old and living in Portland, Oregon at the time and remember the case well. In fact the tiny town of Cougar, Washington has a D.B. Cooper day every year to mark the anniversary of his jump believing he jumped near there. But as I remember it was a lot more west of there toward the coast range in southern Washington. I was still living in Oregon when they found a bunch of rotten bills somewhere near the Columbia River just off from a creek that flowed into it, and it was closer to Cowlitz County just west of Longview and I lived in Columbia County at the time straight across the Columbia River from where they found the money, and even drove over there the day after they reported finding it.

If some one jumped out of an airplane in that area it is a good possibly with careful planning he got to the ground where some one may have been waiting to help him.

I believe he made it and lived to laugh about it.

Ya, even worse? My exhusband had the highest catch rate in Washington for 4 years running in the mid-90's. Some people go their whole lives and only catch one or two. My ex used to haul home 5+ a winter. Insanity. Complete and total insanity.

His favorite rivers to fish were the Chelalis, Cowlitz, Skykomish, and Tolt/Raging. He was the only psycho I knew who would run out when those rivers were under flood advisary because that was when the best fishin' was. He was probably right given his tremendous success.

Kowbouy,

I think it was closer to Cowlitz as well... which for all intents and purpose is not that isolated. If he made it to the ground alive, I think he got away with it. Given all the people tromping around in that area, I would think if he'd died... they would have found something to indicate that by now. Who knows, maybe he was carried off by some black bear, but something tells me that got away with it... I don't know why, other than knowing that area, I think it's really possible.

Maybe this thread should be merged with the more recent one, that is a that a parachute which may have been Cooper's has just been found.
The FBI would say he was dead wouldn't they? Otherwise they look pretty silly don't they?

I say the dude is still out there!! He was smart enough to keep his trap shut.