Posted on 07/30/2011 7:31:04 PM PDT by fight_truth_decay
After hijacking an aeroplane and extorting $200,000 from the FBI, DB Cooper coolly made his escape via parachute. Forty years on, is America’s most elusive fugitive finally in sight?
The night before Thanksgiving, 1971, a man calling himself Dan Cooper, wearing a suit and raincoat, walked up to the Northwest Orient desk at Portland airport in the United State’s Pacific Northwest and spent $20 on a one-way ticket to Seattle.
On the plane, he donned a pair of dark sunglasses, ordered a whiskey, lit up a cigarette and coolly handed the stewardess a note. In capital letters, it read: I HAVE A BOMB IN MY BRIEFCASE. I WILL USE IT IF NECESSARY. I WANT YOU TO SIT NEXT TO ME. YOU ARE BEING HIJACKED.
What happened next would ensure Cooper a place in the pantheon of American folk heroes.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
“There is a subculture related to the Cooper hijacking-online forum calleld The Dropzone or “the DZ”..the D B Cooper thread on the DZ
called one of the "longest and liveliest".
RobertMBlevins & skyjack71 [DZ forum conversations]July 2011
The FBI did finally capture notorious Boston mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger after 16 years.
He’s dead, Jim.
0bama killed him.
DB Cooper ping
” 0bama killed him.”
I think Obama sent him to kill Bin Laden.
Why are they calling him a folk hero?
He stole lots of other people’s money, threatened and endangered dozens of innocents.
It’s offensive to call him a hero
I am Dan Cooper.
I have been living a quiet life on a secluded tropical island for the past 40 years.
sssshhhhh, don’t tell anyone I talked to you about it.....
I agree, all this “folk hero” stuff is crap — people who find romance and excitement in “outlaw” behavior sell a lot of books and movies, though.
I do admit to enjoying “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” but a lot of the outlaw genre leaves me cold, as I think about the moral and human offenses which are being glorified and romanticized.
Lord, I miss the '60s and '70s. I remember smoking on aircraft and free whiskey. $20 for a one-way ticket? You can't get a slice of pizza and drink in an airport for that today.
/johnny
No smoking (and I like that - I have an allergy to cigarette smoke), but there is free whiskey, if you travel enough. Earn a high-mileage classification, and you get the good stuff - even when traveling in economy...;)
Got a pair of whiskeys and a gin and tonic on my last flight to China, even when flying in coach. Benefits of sitting my butt in a plane for 80,000 miles a year (but they add up REAL fast on those trans-Pacific flights).
Wiping a tear from my eye...sniff...
I am Dan Cooper.
I have been living a quiet life on a secluded tropical island for the past 40 years.
You can’t be DB Cooper. I just saw him in Durango, Colo.
There were advantages to the 60s and 70s.
Of course, you DID have to bring the project in on time and under budget.
/johnny
Validate your inner curmudgeon. Tomorrow is Sunday. Have a cigarette and beer for breakfast, growl at the dog.
/johnny
In the 70’s Air Florida had a DC-3 run from Sarasota to Miami that cost $28.00 , what a great flight, fairly low over Okeechobee and the Glades. And now I really appreciate the fact that I got to fly on a DC-3.
That’s always been an intriguing story. The guy who claims his brother bought a place and paid cash shortly after the hijacking has to be wrong. The FBI (and who knows who else?) checked thoroughly for a long time to see if any of the bills with the corresponding serial numbers showed up. If some fool bought a house with it, they’d know exactly where the money was spent and they would have zeroed in on him.
WHAT? I can't hear you!
/johnny
$200,000?
A fella could live large on that for two years!
He stole lots of other people’s money, threatened and endangered dozens of innocents.
It’s offensive to call him a hero
The kind of folk who write for newspapers think he's a folk hero.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.