Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Golden Plunger Awards by Bathroom Readers’ Institute Page B
Authors: Bathroom Readers’ Institute
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canyons of the Cascades in southwestern Washington.
GOING ON A MANHUNT
The search for Dan Cooper, or any shred of his whereabouts, was on. For several weeks, the FBI scoured miles of forest for a body or any evidence of a landing—successful or otherwise. But the case, code named NORJAK, offered investigators precious few clues.
They knew that Dan Cooper was an alias. But police brought a man named D. B. Cooper in for questioning shortly after the hijacking and alerted the media, who confused his name with the name
used by the jumper. Although D. B. Cooper was quickly ruled out as a suspect, his name would be forever linked with the crime.
The FBI also worked with a composite sketch and personality profile of the suspect, based on flight crew accounts, and—decades later—a DNA sample from his tie (he took it off before he jumped), obtained in 2001. The number of suspects totaled close to 1,000 over 30 years. Many who couldn’t possibly have been Cooper falsely confessed to committing the crime, often just before their final breaths. Of the handful of suspects who were seriously considered, Kenneth Peter Christiansen was a favorite. To many, Christiansen seemed to be an obvious match.
DID HE DO IT?
A former paratrooper in the army, Christiansen had extensive skydiving experience and was accustomed to no-frills equipment and brutal landings. As a retired flight attendant and purser for Northwest Airlines, he was obviously well-versed in airline procedures—plus, he was living in Washington at the time of the crime. He smoked Raleigh cigarettes and collected bourbon. And he supposedly bore an uncanny resemblance to the composite sketch—at least according to his brother Lyle, who recognized his face while watching Unsolved Mysteries on television.
Civilian researchers theorized that Christiansen’s motive was retaliation against an airline known at the time for unfair employment practices (mainly against women) and layoffs that led to frequent strikes, which helped to further fuel the Robin Hood syndrome. FBI investigators, however, were not convinced. Deviating from their original assumption that the hijacker was an experienced jumper, they ultimately ruled that only a novice would have jumped under those impossible conditions, and without first checking his chutes. (He jumped with one designed for training, which had a sewed-shut reserve chute.) They also contended that Christiansen, who died in 1994, did not resemble the man in the sketch after all and therefore could not have been Cooper. And so the search continues.
GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
Although they firmly believe that Cooper could not have survived
the jump, the FBI is still determined to get their man, at least on paper. On December 31, 2007, the Bureau revived the 36-year-old case by releasing to the press and public details and evidence surrounding the case, including photos of the deteriorating $20 bills ($5,800 total was recovered) that were found on the banks of the Columbia River on the Washington-Oregon border in 1980. (The FBI matched the serial numbers on the bills to those delivered to Cooper, but nothing more came of the discovery.)
Immortalized through books, movies, music, airline safety features, and even an annual festival in Cowlitz County, Washington, the man known as Dan Cooper continues to elude capture, if only in spirit.
TRIVIA
• D. B. Cooper jumped out of the plane on the eve of the Thanksgiving holiday.
• Universal Pictures used the robbery as a publicity stunt and offered a $1 million reward to anyone who could produce information leading to the capture of the real Cooper—no one ever got the money.
• D. B. Cooper’s necktie was from JC Penney.
• In order to trace the bills, the FBI used bills whose serial numbers all began with the same letter. They also got all of the bills from the same Federal Reserve bank.
• The eight-year-old boy who found the cash got to keep half; the other half was returned to
GOING ON A MANHUNT
The search for Dan Cooper, or any shred of his whereabouts, was on. For several weeks, the FBI scoured miles of forest for a body or any evidence of a landing—successful or otherwise. But the case, code named NORJAK, offered investigators precious few clues.
They knew that Dan Cooper was an alias. But police brought a man named D. B. Cooper in for questioning shortly after the hijacking and alerted the media, who confused his name with the name
used by the jumper. Although D. B. Cooper was quickly ruled out as a suspect, his name would be forever linked with the crime.
The FBI also worked with a composite sketch and personality profile of the suspect, based on flight crew accounts, and—decades later—a DNA sample from his tie (he took it off before he jumped), obtained in 2001. The number of suspects totaled close to 1,000 over 30 years. Many who couldn’t possibly have been Cooper falsely confessed to committing the crime, often just before their final breaths. Of the handful of suspects who were seriously considered, Kenneth Peter Christiansen was a favorite. To many, Christiansen seemed to be an obvious match.
DID HE DO IT?
A former paratrooper in the army, Christiansen had extensive skydiving experience and was accustomed to no-frills equipment and brutal landings. As a retired flight attendant and purser for Northwest Airlines, he was obviously well-versed in airline procedures—plus, he was living in Washington at the time of the crime. He smoked Raleigh cigarettes and collected bourbon. And he supposedly bore an uncanny resemblance to the composite sketch—at least according to his brother Lyle, who recognized his face while watching Unsolved Mysteries on television.
Civilian researchers theorized that Christiansen’s motive was retaliation against an airline known at the time for unfair employment practices (mainly against women) and layoffs that led to frequent strikes, which helped to further fuel the Robin Hood syndrome. FBI investigators, however, were not convinced. Deviating from their original assumption that the hijacker was an experienced jumper, they ultimately ruled that only a novice would have jumped under those impossible conditions, and without first checking his chutes. (He jumped with one designed for training, which had a sewed-shut reserve chute.) They also contended that Christiansen, who died in 1994, did not resemble the man in the sketch after all and therefore could not have been Cooper. And so the search continues.
GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
Although they firmly believe that Cooper could not have survived
the jump, the FBI is still determined to get their man, at least on paper. On December 31, 2007, the Bureau revived the 36-year-old case by releasing to the press and public details and evidence surrounding the case, including photos of the deteriorating $20 bills ($5,800 total was recovered) that were found on the banks of the Columbia River on the Washington-Oregon border in 1980. (The FBI matched the serial numbers on the bills to those delivered to Cooper, but nothing more came of the discovery.)
Immortalized through books, movies, music, airline safety features, and even an annual festival in Cowlitz County, Washington, the man known as Dan Cooper continues to elude capture, if only in spirit.
TRIVIA
• D. B. Cooper jumped out of the plane on the eve of the Thanksgiving holiday.
• Universal Pictures used the robbery as a publicity stunt and offered a $1 million reward to anyone who could produce information leading to the capture of the real Cooper—no one ever got the money.
• D. B. Cooper’s necktie was from JC Penney.
• In order to trace the bills, the FBI used bills whose serial numbers all began with the same letter. They also got all of the bills from the same Federal Reserve bank.
• The eight-year-old boy who found the cash got to keep half; the other half was returned to
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