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Robert Rackstraw, who many researchers suspect could have been behind the infamous D.B. Cooper skyjacking, has reportedly passed away at the age of 75. Thanks to his ties to Oregon, where the legendary 1971 caper took place, as well as a checkered past which included faking his own death to avoid criminal charges and spending time in prison for grand theft, he wound up popping up on the proverbial radar of investigators looking into the case shortly after the skyjacking occurred.In 1978, the FBI briefly considered Rackstraw to be a person of interest in the case, but ultimately ruled him...

The unsolved investigation of the 1971 hijacking of a Seattle-bound airliner and the disappearance of the enigmatic, dapper suspect dubbed D.B. Cooper, is now officially one for the history books, not the FBI.

Most Americans have heard of the case of DB Cooper, who is accused of pulling off the only plane hijacking in the history of the United States that has never been solved. Now, 44 years after the brazen air heist, a Michigan author has put forward a new theory linking the mystery of DB Cooper to an obscure missing person case involving a married father of four who vanished two years before the skyjacking and was never heard from again. Over the years, the facts of the skyjacking history have become the stuff of legends: on November 24, 1971, a...

Yet again, we've seen fighter jets dispatched to 'escort' aircraft to US airports after threats were made against them. Yet again, we've heard travelers and others remark how "comforting" the presence of those aircraft is to them. They clearly don't understand that those fighters are there for one reason and one reason only . . . to shoot down the aircraft if it has, indeed, been hijacked or otherwise turned into a danger to cities and installations on the ground. The fighters can't possibly intervene in a hijacking inside the cabin, and can't stop whatever's on board from manifesting itself....

At 5:00pm Pacific Time, Ethiopian Flight 702, a Boeing 767-300 was flying over Sudan when it started squawking 7500. The transponder code, is supposed to indicate a “hijacking.” (snip) The flight, operating from Addis Abba to Rome has been confirmed by Rome Airport not to have arrived yet. As of now, it is over France, but has recently taken a steep northeast heading. Based on flight tracking, it appears the plane is headed to Geneva. Emergency crews are standing by.

The Yemeni man who was wrestled to the floor after pounding on the cockpit door of a plane approaching San Francisco may have mistaken it for the bathroom. Rageit Almurisi cannot speak English very well and could have misunderstood the signs inside the jet, his cousin claimed. The maths teacher, who was heard yelling 'Allahu Akbar' as he allegedly battered the door, had also only been on three planes in his life and would have been unfamiliar with the layout. His family also claimed that Almurisi, 28, suffers from rheumatoid arthritis and could also have reacted badly when an air...

<p>A 67-year-old man on Thursday admitted hijacking a plane four decades ago and forcing it to land in Cuba, telling a judge how he threatened to cut a flight attendant's throat to get access to the cockpit, where another man held a gun to the back of the co-pilot.</p>

A team of scientists is in town, helping the Seattle FBI do something it hasn't been able to do on its own. They're trying to find new evidence that will lead to one of the Northwest's most notorious fugitives. Tom Kaye's casting with cash, which tells you this is ordinary fisherman on the banks of the Columbia River. Weird science - that's probably the better way to describe the fishing expedition that's going on this week near Vancouver. Kaye is hoping his experiment can help reel in one of the biggest catches of all: the Northwest skyjacker known only as...

45 year old D.B. Cooper enters Portland International Airport. Cooper uses the name Dan Cooper to buy a one-way ticket to Sea-Tac International Airport on November 24, 1971, a Wednesday before Thanksgiving. He boards Northwest Flight 305, a Boeing 727-100. He boards the airplane and attracts no attention. He is wearing suit with a pearl tie and wearing a homburg hat. The airplane starts to taxi and take off from the runway. Flight attendant Flo Schaffner walks by and he hands her a note. Men traveling alone handed nots to flight attendants as a way to pass hotel and phone...

U.S. Air Marshal Forgets Gun in Restroom Fri Apr 9,10:14 PM ET Add U.S. National - CLEVELAND - A federal air marshal accidentally left her gun in a restroom at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, an airport spokeswoman said Friday. A passenger found the semiautomatic handgun Thursday and notified an airport employee. The employee then told airport police, who secured the weapon, said the spokeswoman, Pat Smith. "They later found it belonged to a federal air marshal who apparently was using the restroom and put it up on the shelf while she was washing her hands and forgot about it," Smith...

If you can view this absolutely stunning short movie tribute to the horror that was 9/11 and not have a tear well-up in your eye, you have no emotions. Higher

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal officials say they have no plans to raise the nation's terrorism alert level despite warnings that five-man al-Qaida teams may be planning to hijack and crash more airplanes, similar to the Sept. 11 attacks."The hijackers may try to calm passengers and make them believe they were on a hostage, not suicide, mission," a warning distributed over the weekend to airlines and law enforcement agencies said. "The hijackers may attempt to use common items carried by travelers, such as cameras, modified as weapons."Officials said the credibility of the threat was still being evaluated. But they noted there...

- "Sky Marshalls Have Subdued One or More Men On Flight"Still Trying To Figure What's Going On. This is at terminal A...