However, it was taking more time than the duration of the 30-minute flight to procure everything Cooper had asked for. Nyrop’s concern for his passengers and his airplane prompted him to request the FBI comply with Cooper’s demands.Ĭooper also told the pilots they weren’t to land until everything was ready on the ground in Seattle. Sea-Tac relayed the information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who called Northwest Orient Airlines president Donald Nyrop to brief him. The captain, William Scott, radioed the situation to Seattle-Tacoma air traffic control and instructed Florence to stay in the cockpit for the rest of the flight. He demanded two back parachutes and two front parachutes, a fuel truck ready and waiting in Seattle, and Cooper’s now-infamous skyjacking of Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305 had begun. The denominations of the bills were not important. He asked for $200,000 in negotiable American currency by 5 p.m. After shutting the briefcase again, Cooper instructed Florence to write down his list of demands and then sent her up front to relay them to the captain. He held up a loose wire and told Florence he could detonate the bomb at any time. To Florence’s horror, Cooper then opened his briefcase and revealed what looked like eight sticks of dynamite bundled together with tape and wired to a battery. Florence handed the note to Tina, who relayed what was happening to the pilots via intercom from the rear of the aircraft. As she did so, Cooper donned a pair of black wraparound sunglasses. Wondering where her coworker was, Flight Attendant Tina Mucklow made her way to the back of the plane to find a nervous Florence seated next to a passenger. This is for real.” At that moment, 3:07 p.m., Flight 305’s wheels lifted off the tarmac and the plane began its short trip to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport…usually a short, 30- to 40-minute trip. She asked Cooper if he was joking, to which he replied, “No miss. (WSHS Catalog ID: 2013.37.7)įlorence read the note several times thinking it must be a joke. Cooper, whose seat is visible in the last row, second to the left from the aisle. Interior passenger cabin towards the rear of the Boeing 727 aircraft hijacked by D.B. The word skyjacking became a well-known term in American culture at the height of the Cold War. Most of those were politically motivated terrorists or criminals, as the communist country was off limits to travelers coming from the United States. In a three-year period between 19, more than 80 flights originating in the US were skyjacked and directed to fly to Cuba. Anybody could walk into any airport in the country, buy a plane ticket with cash, and bring anything they wanted on board.Īlso during this time, the United States had a very tense relationship with Cuba, its island neighbor south of Florida. You didn’t even need proper identification to purchase a ticket. Remember, this was at a time when domestic flights didn’t require baggage checks or metal detectors of any kind. In that vein, let’s talk about skyjackings and why we don’t really hear about them much today.ĭuring the 1960s and 70s, airplane hijacking (known as “skyjacking”) was fairly rampant in the United States. After all, who are we to judge the events of yesterday by today’s “enlightened” standards without knowing the full details of what life was like during that time. Now, as with most retellings of historical events, I like to begin by providing a little context. Thousands of people have searched for evidence in the case, trying to solve the only unsolved American skyjacking…ever. Cooper, the myth, by leaping from a perfectly good airplane and right into the pages of Washington State, and truly, national history. Who was Dan Cooper really? Did he survive his fateful fall from the sky? And whatever happened to all that money? It was exactly 50 years ago this month that Dan Cooper, the man, became D.B. They didn’t yet know that that bump meant their ordeal of the past several hours was just about over that they, along with their flight engineer and flight attendant, would live to see another day-because the man known only as Dan Cooper had just exited the plane by leaping from the rear staircase in mid-flight, with a parachute and $200,000 strapped to his body, never to be seen again. Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Stitcher | RSS | Moreįeeling a slight bump up in the cockpit, the pilots of Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305 looked at each other nervously as rain pelted against their windshield at around 200 miles per hour…a relatively slow speed for a Boeing 727. Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
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