Skyjacker's disappearance still a mystery after 30 years

SEATTLE -- Thirty years have passed since D.B. Cooper jumped from a hijacked jetliner with $200,000 in ransom money and disappeared into a remote forest.

With the 30th anniversary of the crime coming on Saturday, Cooper's escapade remains unsolved. The FBI has received thousands of tips, but investigators have nothing to go on -- no suspect, no leads, nothing to prove who Cooper was or where he went.

"He's our Jesse James and Billy the Kid," said Jerry Thomas, a retired Army infantryman who has searched the backwoods of southwestern Washington for any trace of Cooper.

Many who have studied Cooper's actions on Thanksgiving Eve in 1971 are certain he died trying to escape. They have reason to believe that, too. He exited the plane in heavy rain and jumped over a dense forest of pine and Douglas fir. He was dressed in a suit and loafers and one of the two parachutes he used was defective.

But his story continues to fascinate.

On Nov. 24, 1971, a thin man in his 40s calling himself Dan Cooper showed up at the Northwest Orient Airlines ticket counter at Portland International Airport in Oregon. He paid $20 in cash for a one-way flight to Seattle departing at 4:35 p.m. He boarded the plane and took a seat near the back, where he had the row to himself.

Soon after takeoff, Cooper handed a note to a stewardess and said he had a bomb on board. He let her peek into his briefcase at wires and red sticks that looked like explosives. He then demanded $200,000, four parachutes and "no funny stuff." At 5:40 p.m., the plane landed at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and authorities met his demands.

He ordered the plane back into the air and demanded that it fly toward Mexico through Reno at no more than 10,000 feet. He later jumped, and hasn't been seen or heard from since.

He's beaten the best crime fighters in the country, earning him folk hero status among some. On Saturday, the tiny town of Ariel, Wash., will throw a party for Cooper for the 27th straight year at the Ariel Store, a bar.