Vanity Fair: Nearly 50 Years Later, the Mystery of D.B. Cooper Remains an Obsession

When John Dower first heard about the D.B. Cooper skyjacking, the British filmmaker was “really fucking annoyed” he hadn’t learned of the incredible caper sooner.

“You think, It can’t be true; it’s bonkers,” Dower told Vanity Fair over Zoom last week, speaking from his office, where he sat in front of stacks of books about the unsolved crime. “It’s just such a crazy story.”

On Thanksgiving eve in 1971, a man wearing a suit and black tie boarded a Boeing 727 in Portland. Once on board, the man—who gave the name Dan Cooper—sparked a cigarette, ordered a bourbon and soda, and handed the flight attendant a note alleging that he had a bomb in his attaché case. He demanded $200,000 in ransom (over $1.2 million today) and four parachutes. The flight crew relayed the demand to law enforcement—and, during an emergency stop, Cooper received his money. The plane returned to the air and Cooper parachuted out, never to be publicly seen or heard from again.

“I became, like some of the characters in my film, obsessed,” said Dower, who devoted about four years of his life to a documentary about the unsolved crime, The Mystery of D.B. Cooper, now available on HBO. 

Read the full article on Vanity Fair.