The agency said it will preserve evidence from the case at its Washington, D.C. headquarters, but it doesn’t want further tips unless people find parachutes – or Cooper’s money.
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It began on November 24, 1971, when a dark-haired man who called himself Dan Cooper, dressed in a business suit and tie and believed to be in his mid-40s, boarded a Northwest Orient Airlines flight in Portland, Oregon, bound for Seattle.
An artists sketch of D.B. Cooper, who vanished in 1971 with $200,000 in stolen cash.
But despite an investigation which became one of the longest and the most exhaustive in the FBI’s history, the trail went cold – and the bureau says it’s time to focus on other cases.
The FBI adds that the 45-year old case is tying up resources which it needs to allocate to other, more urgent, efforts.
Over the years, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and amateur sleuths have examined innumerable theories about Cooper’s identity and fate, from accounts of unexplained wealth to purported discoveries of his parachute to potential matches of the agency’s composite sketch of the suspect.
And while the agency is no longer actively investigating the case, the statement said it is still open to receiving new physical evidence related to the hijacker – specifically, the parachutes or the ransom money.
The case has generated major global attention over the years.
After boarding the plane, he ordered a bourbon and soda, lit a cigarette, and coolly handed the stewardess a note.
During the flight, he gave a flight attendant a note indicating he had a bomb in his briefcase and wanted her to sit with him, and she obeyed.
The airliner landed in Seattle safely and he freed 36 passengers in exchange for $200,000 (approximately Rs 1.3 crore) in cash and four parachutes. After takeoff, Cooper told the pilot to set a course to Mexico City.
The FBI has suspended active investigation to determine the identity and fate of famed airplane hijacker “D.B”.
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In addition, Gray – author of “Skyjack: The Hunt for D. B. Cooper”, published by Broadway – says a quirk in the statute of limitations laws means that “in theory, if Cooper were to walk out of the woods today, he could theoretically be charged with a crime”. After it departed, with Cooper and a crew on board, Cooper jumped from the air-stair fitted underneath the 727’s aft fuselage. Despite some tantalizing clues discovered over the years – such as a rotting package full of $5,800 in twenty-dollar bills with serial numbers that matched the ransom money – many investigators believe Cooper never survived his plummet to the earth.
