DB Cooper's Parachute Found?

In November of 1971 D.B. Cooper boarded a commercial flight on a Boeing 727 in Portland, Oregon that was bound for Seattle and demanded $200,000 and four parachutes. During the flight, Cooper jumped from the airplane that was cruising at almost 200 knots at 10,000 feet. The FBI has spent almost 40 years trying to find or recover Cooper as well as the money he disappeared with.

A parachute, similar to the one that was given to Cooper that night was found by a Clark County resident while he was plowing on a piece of his property. His children completed the recovery and the FBI's office in Seattle was called. The parachute was a Navy issue NB-6. Larry Carr, the leading investigator of the Cooper case told the Seattle Post he didn't know if it was Cooper's parachute, "If this canopy can be traced to the NB6 backpack, it will start looking pretty good."

The weather the night Cooper jumped from the commercial flight was dismal. The temperature at 10,000 feet that night was well below zero. It has been assumed by many that D.B. Cooper did not survive the night that he jumped; however the FBI has questioned thousands of suspects and witnesses during the investigation.

Cooper's actions were a crime of the time. The crime inspired the first evidence of airport security. Prior to 1971, you could walk onto a plane with a bomb in or on your possession. The security that was developed because of the Northwest Orient flight has changed the face of this type of crime. Throughout the seventies and eighties there were less and less violent hijackings in the airline industry. Since then, the events of 9/11 have made the crime of hijacking a plane not only breaking the law, but an immoral act as well.

Carr also stated that "the mystery deepens" because if Cooper landed where the parachute was recovered, there was no natural way for the money that was found to have gotten there. It would have had to have been moved. There have been many books published regarding the case and several theories of Cooper's escape or demise, several by ex-FBI agents.

The $200,000 dollars that Cooper demanded that night and jumped from the plan with has never been found or circulated. Several thousand worn dollars was found along the Columbia River in 1980. Although the origins of the parachute are still not known, it adds possible clues and has rekindled interest in this historical mystery!