D.B. Cooper. U.S. Attorney’s Case File for the skyjacking case involving the alias “D.B. Cooper,” dated 1971.
This record is an image from the 1971 FBI report for one of the most high-profile U.S. District Attorney’s Cases for the Western District of Washington: Case CR-0451, the infamous skyjacking case involving the alias “D.B. Cooper.”
On Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305 bound for Seattle from Portland, OR, Cooper handed a flight attendant a note indicating that he had an explosive device. He demanded $200,000 in exchange for the safe return of all the passengers on board. After receiving the money, he jumped from the back of the plane with a parachute somewhere between Seattle and Reno, NV. Optimistic that the case would be solved quickly, the U.S. Attorney’s office opened the file under this placeholder name, and D.B. Cooper was never found.
The investigative case file contains photographs and the initial sketch of the suspect. There are also detailed experiments conducted by the U.S. Air Force and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to determine how the theft was pulled off.
U.S. Attorney’s Case File for the skyjacking case involving the alias “D.B. Cooper,” dated 1971. National Archives Identifier: 325594129
View and download the FBI report for the D.B. Cooper skyjacking case on the National Archives Catalog. This record is one example of the many records from the U.S. Attorney’s criminal case files at the National Archives at Seattle, WA. You can explore more records held at the National Archives at Seattle through the National Archives Catalog or by visiting the National Archives at Seattle. This record is located within Record Group 118: Records of U.S Attorneys, Series: Significant Case Files, 1918–1974. Many of the records in this collection have yet to be digitized. We encourage researchers to visit us onsite to explore these records and learn more about the archival collections held at the National Archives at Seattle.