A HOSTAGE aboard DB Cooper's hijacked flight believes he could still pick the elusive crook out of a line-up more than 52 years on.
Michael Cooper was traveling home for Thanksgiving when his flight, Northwest Orient 305, was hijacked on November 24, 1971, by a smartly dressed man identifying himself as Dan Cooper.
9
9
9
The 31-year-old teacher boarded the Boeing 727 in Missoula, Montana. The plane made scheduled stops in Spokane, Washington, and Portland, Oregon, where Dan Cooper boarded, before jetting off again toward Seattle.
Dan Cooper, wearing sunglasses and a suit, took a seat in the last row of the aircraft just behind Michael and ordered a bourbon and 7UP.
Michael said he immediately took notice of the dapperly-dressed gentleman when he boarded, noting him to be a cool-seeming character.
Shortly after Flight 305 took off for the last leg of its journey, Dan Cooper - or DB as he'd become known - handed a note to a flight attendant warning her he had a bomb in his suitcase.
Read More on DB Cooper
In exchange for the lives of everyone onboard, Cooper was seeking $200,000 in $20 bills and four parachutes.
But Michael and the other 30-or-so passengers on board were none the wiser to the frightening situation unfolding in the cabin.
Cooper's negotiations were carried out almost silently. He communicated with a stewardess whom he demanded sit next to him and gave her notes to take to the cockpit so the pilots could relay his demands to authorities on the ground.
All of the passengers would remain oblivious until the flight finally touched down at Seattle-Tacoma Airport more than two hours later than scheduled.
Most read in The US Sun
Cooper would later order Flight 305 to take off for a fourth time in the direction of New Mexico.
But somewhere over southwest Washington, he lowered the 727's rear aft stairs and parachuted into the night, never to be seen again.
D.B. Cooper: Where Are You?Some 800 suspects were investigated in the years following the skyjacking but no arrests were ever made.
The mystery of DB Cooper's identity has been subject to fierce debate ever since.
But Michael Cooper believes he could still pick the crook out of a line-up today if the right culprit was brought forward.
"The first time I saw the sketch of DB Cooper that they put in the newspaper, I thought it was extremely accurate and looked extremely close to what he actually looked like," Michael told The U.S. Sun.
"He had a very kind of brownish skin, darker skin, but apart from that it was accurate. He was definitely physically fit.
"The image of him is clear in my mind [...] I think I could still pick him out of a line-up, I do."
IN CONTROL
Throughout much of the flight, Michael had kept a watchful eye on DB Cooper, noticing something odd in his behavior.
Aside from the fact a flight attendant was sitting next to him for the duration, Michael observed that DB Cooper was quiet but appeared to be in charge.
"He was probably in his 40s, and he was wearing a jacket and a tie and he was just real quiet," said Michael, now 84.
"He had a little briefcase and took the middle seat of the back row, which I thought was kind of unusual, but at that time I had no idea that anything bad was happening.
"Then something else strange happened when we took off: the stewardess came down and sat next to him in the aisle seat, and they were engrossed in a deep conversation.
"He never got up to go to the bathroom, which I had to do at one stage.
"But I couldn't catch wind of anything he or the flight attendant were saying.
"He was just, I would say, cool. Whenever I looked at him, he just looked right back and stared at me, like he was the boss."
9
9
9
The only inclination that something was wrong aboard Northwest 305 came when the pilot announced over the intercom that the aircraft was experiencing minor engine trouble and they needed to burn off excess fuel before attempting to land in Seattle.
In reality, the pilot was circling in the sky to buy authorities enough time to scramble together Cooper's ransom money and parachutes.
Michael's focus on the odd dynamic between Cooper and the flight attendant was temporarily diverted when he realized Flight 305 had passed over Seattle.
"The pilot's explanation for what was happening didn't make sense to me," remembered Michael. "I just kept looking out the window and wondering why the hell we were doing this.
"I had no idea a hijacking was going on but I realized there was probably something special going on between the guy in the back row and the stewardess.
"Occasionally, a stewardess would come from the front of the airplane to the back, talk to the stewardess sat next to the hijacker, and go back to the front of the plane.
"We were totally without knowledge that a hijacking was going on. I was more concerned that the pilot was lying and there was something seriously wrong with the airplane."
FRIGHTENING REALIZATION
Before landing, all passengers were asked to move up to first class and everybody obliged, except for DB Cooper and another passenger, Bill Mitchell, who was sitting across the aisle from the hijacker.
Mitchell eventually moved too at the persistent pleading of a flight attendant.
After two-and-a-half hours, Flight 305 finally landed.
The first time I saw the sketch of DB Cooper that they put in the newspaper, I thought it was extremely accurate and looked extremely close to what he actually looked like.
Michael CooperFlight 305 Passenger
The aircraft taxied to the end of the runway and parked a significant distance from the terminal and all other aircraft.
"It all seemed suspicious at that point," said Michael.
"I was then sitting next to a guy who worked for some government agency who'd recently investigated a hijacking and he thought something unusual was going on too.
"And then, the next thing we know, a fuel truck pulls up alongside the plane and then a few minutes later, a stewardess came walking down the aisle holding a huge sack with the name of a bank written across it.
"You could tell it was filled with money. And then she came back with a couple of parachutes.
"That's when the pilot came on the speaker and told us to exit immediately."
The passengers left the aircraft through the door at the front of the plane and crossed the runway to an airport bus.
While on the bus, Michael and his fellow passengers learned for the first time the truth of what had unfolded on Flight 305.
But this would be only the beginning of Michael's entanglement with DB Cooper.
"Several burly FBI agents were waiting for us on the bus and one of them had a sheet of paper, and he started calling out the names of the passengers," he explained.
"The agent called D. Cooper and nobody answered. He called again and again, but nobody answered.
"I thought he'd made some kind of mistake, so I spoke up and said, 'I'm M. Cooper, Michael Cooper,' and I saw the guy standing at the head of the bus scratch something off his sheet.
"They then took us to the terminal building, where we were interviewed by a handful of people. I gave them my identification and my information, described to them what happened, and then my sister picked me up and I spent the rest of the evening in Seattle."
Michael's sister drove him back to her house and left him for the night to go out to a party.
He would later discover that the agent who conducted the roll call had counted D. Cooper among the passengers on board the bus but not M. Cooper.
M. Cooper, as far as federal authorities were concerned, was unaccounted for and therefore presumed to be the hijacker.
After all the passengers exited, Flight 305 was instructed by DB Cooper to take off again in the direction of New Mexico.
Somewhere over southwest Washington, he parachuted out of the flight with the ransom and all of his belongings, never to be seen again.
9
9
9
Michael Cooper, meanwhile, was left alone with his thoughts at his sister's home.
He was unable to call any of his friends or family members because his sister didn't have a phone.
Michael could barely believe the events of the past few hours - and his disbelief was further suspended when he switched on the 10 o'clock news to see his name on the screen, identifying him as the skyjacker at large.
"The top story that night was the hijacking," said Michael. "I was watching the footage, when one of those messages appeared along the bottom of the screen saying that the FBI was seeking Michael Cooper, a high school teacher from Missoula, Montana, in connection with the hijacking.
"I just shook my head in disbelief. I thought, 'This can't be true, what the devil has happened?'
"Because I couldn't call anyone - not my wife, my parents, or friends - and say, 'I didn't do this, that's not me.'
"I just got up and went to bed. It was all just too much for me to process."
MISTAKEN IDENTITY
While Michael slept, back in his hometown of Missoula, the Cooper family's phone was ringing off the hook with agents and reporters quizzing Michael's wife regarding his whereabouts.
She was unable to provide them with any details - nobody had heard from him since the plane landed.
The FBI also contacted administrators at Missoula Sentinel High School, who informed the Bureau that Michael had left school early that day to catch a flight.
Speculation about Michael Cooper began to build on local news broadcasts, and his parents were also eventually questioned by cops in Sequim, Washington.
Within 24 hours, the FBI's error was finally rectified and reports were changed to name Dan Cooper (who later became known as D.B. Cooper due to a printing error in an early news article) as the culprit cops were seeking.
Michael Cooper was never contacted by the FBI again.
More than 50 years later, he said he is still waiting for an apology from the Bureau.
"The whole situation scared the hell out of me and made me never want to fly on an airplane again," admitted Michael.
"It took me quite a while before I was able to find the guts to go back."
"I also lost my faith in the federal government," he added.
"I used to think that the FBI was the most professional organization in the world, and knowing that they made such a stupid mistake of just crossing off the wrong name and never even bothering to apologize just left a sour taste in my mouth.
"For years afterward, my income taxes were quite often checked and I had to go into the Bureau and justify my expenses, so clearly I still had a red flag against my name," he said.
Even now, every time Michael steps foot on a plane or hears one flying overhead, the first thing he thinks of is DB Cooper and his brush with death.
Some of his friends still tease him by calling him "DB," much to his amusement.
For years, Michael held an annual event to recall the story of Flight 305 at Missoula Sentinel High and later Sequim High School, where he retired in 2011.
Michael doesn't believe DB Cooper survived his perilous skydive.
"I think this Cooper guy was a very independent, very strong individual but I think he made a stupid mistake," he said.
"I don't think he'd have survived jumping out that plane, but that's just my opinion. I think he died during the jump because the weather was so crummy.
"Maybe he was the perfect smoke jumper type [...] but I always suspected he ended up in the woods of the area where he jumped and hit the ground.
"They found $5,800 of his money along the Columbia River [in 1980], I doubt he'd just be throwing away that kind of money if he'd lived."
DNA BREAKTHROUGH
Despite his belief Cooper died instantly, Michael still wants answers as to who he was.
Searching for those answers is Eric Ulis, an independent investigator who recently obtained a sample of Cooper's DNA lifted from a clip-on tie he left behind on his seat.
He is working to submit that sample to a state-of-the-art lab metagenomic DNA analysis, an advanced kind of analysis that enables scientists to separate individual strands of DNA.
Once all of the DNA strands from the tie are separated, Kaye and Ulis will begin building a genetic profile of Cooper to compare with outstanding suspects.
Ulis believes he can unmask Cooper by the end of the year.
Read More on The US Sun
He told The U.S. Sun, "By December 31, 2024, this is going to be a new world as far as this case is concerned.
"We're either going to have figured out who this guy is, or we're gonna have a solid DNA profile to work with that's going to be pointing us in the right direction."
