40 yrs after hijacker vanished into thin air, US hopes to crack case

The FBI says it has a “credible lead” in one of its most infamous cases: the 40-year investigation into “D B Cooper” , an unidentified man who parachuted out of the back of an aeroplane over Washington state, in what is still the nation’s only unsolved hijacking.
A spokeswoman for the Bureau said they are testing fingerprints and DNA evidence of someone with a “strong” possible connection to the man responsible for the crime.She described the “significant” new lead as the “most promising” development since the case was opened in 1971.
The hijacker, who called himself Dan Cooper when buying his ticket, struck on the day before Thanksgiving, on a Northwest Orient flight from Portland, Oregon, to Seattle, Washington. After ordering a whisky, he passed note to a stewardess which claimed that he was carrying a bomb.
Cooper, who was wearing sunglasses, a suit and tie, said he would release 36 fellow passengers provided $200,000 and four parachutes were waiting for him in Seattle. Having secured the items, he then instructed the captain to take off again, and fly towards Mexico. Somewhere over south-western Washington state, he opened the plane’s rear exit door, and disappeared into the night sky, carrying two parachutes and all the cash. It was days until police could send out proper search parties, and the hijacker was never seen or heard from again.
—THE INDEPENDENT