The FBI investigation into the infamous D.B. Cooper incident—America’s only unsolved plane hijacking—officially ended in 2016. But federal law enforcement may be regaining interest in the case after examining a parachute rig long hidden inside a family’s storage.
The D.B. Cooper incident
On November 24, 1971, a man registered as Dan Cooper boarded Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305 traveling from Portland, Oregon, to Seattle, Washington. Once in midair Cooper passed a note to a stewardess informing her that his battered briefcase supposedly contained a bomb, and that he would detonate it unless he received $200,000 in cash and four parachutes. Flight 305’s pilots landed their plane in Seattle, at which point authorities delivered Cooper’s demands before the aircraft again took off for Portland. It was during this flight that the hijacker strapped on one of the parachutes, clutched his ransom money, and leapt into the night sky.
What followed was one of the most high-profile US criminal investigations of all time—a case that spanned over 45 years, resulted in more than 800 suspect leads, and ended in no official charges or clear culprits.
“Although the FBI appreciated the immense number of tips provided by members of the public, none to date have resulted in a definitive identification of the hijacker,” the Bureau announced on July 12, 2016. “… In order to solve a case, the FBI must prove culpability beyond a reasonable doubt, and, unfortunately, none of the well-meaning tips or applications of new investigative technology have yielded the necessary proof.”
Authorities did take care to note, however, that “should specific physical evidence emerge—related specifically to the parachutes or the money taken by the hijacker—individuals with those materials are asked to contact their local FBI field office.”
Seven years later, a retired pilot, recreational skydiver, and YouTuber took the FBI up on its offer.
A ‘one in a billion’ piece of evidence
As highlighted earlier this week in a two-part report from Wyoming’s Cowboy State Daily, D.B. Cooper sleuth Dan Gryder believes he may finally possess evidence that can conclusively pin the hijacker’s identity to a man named Richard McCoy II. McCoy is a familiar name to Cooper case followers as one of the FBI’s longtime principal suspects, although many critics have dismissed him as the culprit.
But although never proven to be the mystery hijacker, McCoy’s own story is wild enough—he conducted a nearly identical flight robbery just five months after the D.B. Cooper incident. Unlike Cooper, however, McCoy didn’t fade into myth. Instead, law enforcement apprehended him within 72 hours thanks to fingerprints left in the plane, and McCoy was subsequently sentenced to 45 years in prison, although he always maintained his innocence. McCoy then managed to break out of his maximum security facility in Pennsylvania in 1974. Three months later, McCoy was cornered by police in Virginia City, Virginia, and killed in a shootout.
Gryder attempted to contact McCoy’s now-adult children, Chanté and Richard “Rick” III, multiple times over the years, but they refused to comment in order to protect their mother, Karen, from implication in the D.B. Cooper case. After Karen McCoy’s death in 2020, however, they felt it was time to discuss the alleged family secret. Following extensive communications, Gryder eventually traveled to North Carolina to meet the surviving McCoys and assess their evidence.
According to Gryder’s own, extensive two-part YouTube documentary, the items believed to prove both their father and mother’s roles in the robbery include a skydiving log that coincided with both the D.B. Cooper and Utah hijackings. They also revealed a heavily modified military surplus bailout parachute rig that they allege their father used to jump out of Flight 305 in 1971.
“That rig is literally one in a billion,” Gryder told Cowboy State Daily.
The potential smoking guns allegedly didn’t just catch the interest of Gryder, either. On November 18th, a third entry in his YouTube series explained the new finds prompted the FBI to contact Gryder, as well as arrange for a visit to the McCoy family’s property in North Carolina. Additional video footage reportedly depicts at least seven vehicles and over a dozen FBI agents assessing “every nook and cranny” for around four hours, according to McCoy III speaking with the Wyoming paper. If true, it marks the first documented D.B. Cooper case follow-up its official close in 2016.
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But now, the D.B. Cooper case—and its potential McCoy family links—remain in limbo. Rick McCoy III stated he has provided DNA samples to the FBI, and is willing to exhume his father’s body for further analysis. The FBI did not respond to Popular Science’s request for comment, and redirected Cowboy State Daily to its last case update in 2016. If it does become clear that Richard McCoy II was D.B. Cooper, however, it would put to rest one of US law enforcement’s longest and most unique cases.
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