D.B. Cooper mystery | what happened to D.B. Cooper? Famous skyjacking | Dan Cooper mystery
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ต.ค. 2024
- The mystery of D.B. Cooper, who was perhaps America’s most famous skyjacker has fascinated the world since 1971. On 24 November that year a man calling himself Dan Cooper (the name D.B. Cooper was a later press error) bought a one-way ticket at Portland International airport for a trip to Seattle-Tacoma International airport. He boarded Northwest Orient Airlines flight 305, which was being serviced by a Boeing 727 plane and proceeded to hijack it after take-off. Claiming to have a bomb, he demanded that $200,000 and four parachutes be brought onboard when the plane landed in Seattle. This was done and having refuelled, the plane took off again. Somewhere en route to Reno-Tahoe, where another refuelling was planned for an onward trip to Mexico, Cooper had the crew leave him alone in the cabin, lowered the 727’s distinctive back staircase and jumped out of the plane with the money. He was never seen again. Over eight years later, on 10 February 1980, an eight-year-old boy named Brian Ingram was playing on a beach known as Tina Bar and discovered three packets of the Cooper ransom money, totally $5,800. No further evidence has ever come to light regarding what happened to Cooper or the rest of the money and he has since become an almost mythic figure.
In this D.B. Cooper documentary from History Calling, I take you through the events of the night of 24 November 1971 in detail, using crime scene photographs and witness statements taken by the FBI from the plane’s flight crew to tell you what Dan Cooper looked like, what he said and how he acted. I’ll also discuss what the few remaining items left behind by the skyjacker tell us about who D.B. Cooper really was and what the discovery of the money might mean. I’ll finish by telling you what happened to D.B. Cooper in my opinion, why he has proved so elusive to the FBI’s NORJAK investigation and why this is my favourite historical mystery.
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Do you think Cooper survived and do you have any theories about how the money got to Tena Bar? Let me know in the comments below and remember to check out my Patreon at www.patreon.com/historycalling and my Amazon storefront at www.amazon.com/shop/historycalling
Very Interesting when you dive into it. I almost skipped this one. I am glad I listened
Hard to say if he survived would've depended on where he landed, if he came down in the Columbia doubt he would've faired to well!!!
He was executive of a company who saved his company from bankruptcy in early 1970s. If you do some digging and search for distressed companies list in the 1960s, you will come across his name. Enough of hints.
I don't know what you've heard about our firearms laws and how our law enforcement operates. But we would never just hand a weapon to a very random 22 y/o flight attendant and send them to merc a plane hijackeder. Lol... 🤣🤣🤣🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
Your imagination is good though
@@jasonkonoski773no proof once again noone has any proof I have retraced his steps .I guess every thing is circumstancel evidence their is no solid proof.
In my senior year of high school, we were asked to write a 2-4 page paper on a historical mystery. I turned in 36 pages on Dan Cooper. I have read, watched, listened to, pretty much everything about him out there. This is not the kind of story I would have expected you to cover and that makes me even more excited to listen!
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE DONATION NICOLE. Oh I'm a sucker for an historical mystery. I've been wanting to cover this topic since I started my channel. I just knew it would be a big undertaking and kept putting it off, but no more! :-)
@@HistoryCalling I'm so glad you finally were able to! It definitely is a big undertaking. I'm glad you mention the possibility of him being Canadian because a lot of the theories/suspects surround Americans, and Sea-Tac airport is closer to Canada than most of the country, and pre September 11th it was much easier to cross the border. Though even today, I live in one of a handful of states that you can get a special driver's license that allows you to go to Canada without a passport. We're much more lax with the northern border than we are of the southern.
I didn't know that about crossing the Canadian border. I just remember Ryan Reynolds talking in an interview once about getting stopped with some illegal apple pies (or something) that Blake Lively wanted and having to sing a little song to be allowed across, so I assumed they were reasonably strict (except with celebs of course). :-)
@@nicolemeiner6903 That is a possibility. Perhaps the terrified crew members failed to pick up on any giveaway word such as "out, doubt, about" which always help us distinguish Canadians from U.S.-raised English speakers.
@@annmoore6678 If they said he sounded midwestern, that could actually explain that! The Upper Peninsula of Michigan and Upper Minnesota pronounces those words the same way as Canada does!
Seattle is my hometown and I lived there during this whole incredible story. I, like others in your audience, am surprised you covered this, and delighted.
I like to get away from royal and even British history sometimes and mysteries of all sorts have always fascinated me. I'd love to see Seattle in person some day and not just on TV. It looks lovely.
@@HistoryCalling Seattle is Fantastic 👏 🎉. Going there for a Solid week in Sept to see DEF LEPPARD, Go to the Rain Forest in Olympic National Park and go Orca or Killer Whale 🐋 Watching. Great Food Along Alaskan Way on the Waterfront. God Bless You 🙏 and Thanks for the Video.
@@perryanderson5642 There is a magical stone near Olympic National forest that was covered by unsolved mysteries (1988.) It has been linked with changing the fortune of people who touch it. It's in Tumwater Creek near Port Angeles.
I KNOW it was a foolish plan, but I WANT to believe he was a genius. And I KNOW he didn’t survive, but I WANT to believe he somehow pulled it off and peacefully lived out his days somewhere. 😅
I hate that this case will never be solved, but it’s great to keep hearing about. Thanks for a great breakdown!
RIP Mr “Cooper”. If you couldn’t survive your heist, at least you survived in infamy.
I'll admit that him living happily ever after would make for a better ending. :-)
How do you know he didn't survive?
They never found a body
@@guess1866 None of the serial number bills were recovered in circulation except the ones found by the kid
@@kentdelahay2336 maybe he lost the cash on the way down and couldn’t find it and it’s still buried out in the woods somewhere.
I have been following this case for over 40 years (I was 5 when it happened). Your summary of it was better than just about every other history documentary. Bravo.
I am with you - splat. Given the terrain and the weather and his clothing, it would be the story of the century to survive the jump and then make it out of the mountains alive and unnoticed.
Thanks again for this - I appreciate you doing this story.
Aww, thank you. I aim to please :-)
You need to study the area of the postulated drop zone. It was not the untamed wilderness some people imagine it to be but rather a developed and inhabited rural area. The weather on the ground was cold but above freezing and therefore survivable. A local witness claims to have seen an unidentified man walking through the local area on the night of the skyjacking. In any case, it was not known yet that a skyjacking suspect or any criminal suspect could possibly be in the area.
I have driven up and down I-5 between California and Washington a number of times over the last 20 years. If he had a ground man positioned anywhere between Eugene, Oregon and Tacoma, Washington, all he had to get out of there was to make it to a pay phone and he would have been picked up within three hours.
Back then, the idea of a man at a travel stop or a restaurant waiting for someone to pick him up was a pretty normal event. As long as he was polite and spent a little money, it was all okay.
Almost all of the expert opinion is that the jump was survivable. All of the copycats survived the jump. Cooper faced the most severe conditions though.
I vote for The Far Side's theory of what happened. You see a man with a parachute descending behind a fence and you see silhouettes of canines with their noses looking up at him. And a sign on the fence says Rottweiler Farm.
The caption of the strip: the untold end of DB Cooper.
Oh no! Gross! :-0
😂😂😂😂
It was included in the opening of the Far Side animated special back in the 90s.
Ah, yes. As an old codger, I remember the days when air travel wasn't much more inconvenient than taking a taxi. I took many an uneventful flight back then. Fortunately, my gad-about flying days ended about the time when air travel became generally unpleasant.
Interesting subject matter, History Calling. Keep on keepin' on... as was said in my younger days. 🙂
Thanks Michael. Even I look back on the days when you didn't have to take your shoes off at security with fond memories. They're bringing in new scanners in airports though, so that people won't have to take their liquids out at least.
Perfect video for today. My grandfather is a retired pilot and today is his 92 birthday. And no he is not DB, but the description certainly matches 😆
Happy birthday to him and if he sees the video, I hope he enjoys it :-)
the fact that he didn't spend any of the bank notes I think is the biggest clue to the fact he didn't survive
Yes, that doesn't bode well for him.
Finally a comprehensive, realistic retelling of the most famous hijacking .
The fact that it was so sloppily executed makes me wonder if he had high thoughts of himself.
Nothing in this case makes sense, he said that he held a grudge, but way choose such a difficult way to get revenge?
One possibility is that he had mental problems. My brother has schizophrenia and believes he can do all sorts of things (not dangerous, thank goodness). Nobody in his right mind is going to parachute out of a plane, at night, with what sounds like half a parachute.
@@danajeannenorris3036 yeah, that was my thought too.
Yes, I wonder who the grudge was against too? Perhaps he was very unwell in his head as you say, or he was ill and wanted to end things himself in spectacular fashion.
@@HistoryCalling Perhaps the grudge was against the bank or the banking system in general. They're the only ones in this whole incident who felt the greatest loss, and even $200k to a multi billion dollar banking industry is a write off. He either was a disgruntled employee of a bank or corporation or a man who'd lost everything through a divorce or family tragedy and just wanted to go out spectacularly or he was delusional.
Over the years, it's occurred to me that perhaps he never intended to survive. For all we know, he had been diagnosed with a fatal illness or was just done with life in general, but wanted to go out with a bang and maybe with people talking about "who the heck was this guy". Might have been thinking "I'm just nobody in particular, no one's going to remember me" (perhaps he didn't have family) and figured why not do something completely bananas.
He may have gotten what he wanted after all.
Or it was just poor planning and he was desperate for money.
Or oddly knew just what he was doing and pulled it off in a way that would seem ludicrous to anyone else. (Unlikely though.)
Honestly, I doubt he survived.
Either way, he left the world a mystery that seems to have brought enjoyment to many.
Yes, that's possible (that he was ill I mean). Perhaps all those cigarettes had caught up with him.
I have actually considered this too. If he had no one, through death or a family breaking apart, he may have just wanted to end his life but do it in a way that people would always talk about him.
I don't think he had a family or even many friends. If he did someone should have recognized his picture.
Thank you for your no nonsense video about this man! I’ve read many explanations about DB Cooper, and agree with you that there was no way he survived that jump.
Yeah, I think there were just too many things against him (the weather, the terrain, the dark, his clothing).
@@HistoryCallingnothing found though...
I think as PNW'er it's just built into your DNA to feel that he's a local legend.
I've been winter camping in the Cascades and in November, you just don't get dry unless you have a good fire, and even then the guy had injuries. It's just rain and cold and pain for him.
If that bag had gone down the Washougal (easily in flood season in the spring, bc of the high GPM during the thaw), it could have landed on a bar or some beach. The Columbia is largely a big series of lakes due to damming, but it does flow fairly free after the Bonneville.
I agree he probably was some guy who had it all down on paper, I'd almost guess an engineer.
I always wondered if there was some missing person that never was accounted for, I mean, no one just springs fully formed into life.
As usual, your videos are just a chef's kiss.
Thank you. Yes, it is strange that no missing person was ever matched to him, because I really don't think he survived. It's sad though to think that maybe no one reported him missing. Maybe he usually had long hair and beard and shaved them off before the flight so he looked very different to normal! :-)
He absolutely didn't survive in my opinion but I still love the mystery and speculations around this event. Love your coverage, one of the best I've encountered on the topic👍
Thank you. Yeah, I think he died that night, but hey, it was a heck of an exit. We gotta give him that.
He did survive the jump.
In fact a few months later he did it again and was caught.
Probable Cause by Dan Gryder. on you tube explains it all.
Sad story, sad ending.
This is one of the most accurate summaries of the case I’ve ever seen. You even reported on a few details I haven’t heard on the channels that focus almost exclusively on Cooper.
There are a few nitpicks I have with some of your statements, but those really only matter if you think you’ll do an updated version in the future.
Biggest photo goofs are that you show a lot of ram-air parachutes, and none of those provided to Cooper were that type. He only had round/conical parachutes. And I don’t think any of the cockpit photos you used were of a 727.
But still probably the most accurate summary of any channel that isn’t Cooper-specific. Good work!
👏👏Splendid, HC! I agree with you that Cooper doesn't come across as a criminal mastermind. I've always figured that he became part of the forest ecosystem; not a great idea to skydive @ night. 🙏🏼
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE DONATION STEPHEN. You're very kind, as always. Yeah, I think he's pushing up daisies (or whatever grows out there) too.
I live in the Pacific Northwest and was a kid when this happened. I love everything about this mystery
What a nutcase! I don't remember this case (I would have been 12) but it sounds utterly bonkers. If Dan Cooper was 40ish in 1971 he was probably born between 1919 - 1931 which would have put him in the right age range for military training for WW2. If he had been through para training, it would have been basic stuff and out of date anyway, planned for landing in the French countryside not the mountains and terrain of Oregon. I think he probably perished before he crashlanded, frozen to death on the way down. Animals would have found his body and bits of him would have been scattered far and wide. The bag containing the money probably deteriorated and the cash dispersed by the weather. Classic example of how not to hijack an aeroplane (which he obviously had not researched). Mentally unbalanced and with an unfounded confidence. Maybe watched too many Bond films! Thanks HC, this was very entertaining. 🤣
He went splat on a tree, or a mountain, or a tree on a mountain! 😆 🤣 Too funny! 🤣
Yeah, I think it's the most likely explanation. He might even have already been dead from hypothermia by that point. I suppose it depends how long he was in the air.
@@HistoryCalling a Dansicle splattting on a tree on a mountain? 😆
@@melissaholleron719”Dansicle” made me laugh
@@HistoryCalling I've heard other experts/researchers say the weather wasn't as bad as many claim.
or drowned in the water
As a 20-year pilot this is one of the best DB Cooper videos I have seen. Clear facts with an honest assessment at the end. May I suggest a video on either the Great Train Robbery (1963) or the Real Sherlock Holmes (Dr. Joseph Bell) Thanks for the amazing and entertaining videos! 🙂
THANK YOU SO MUCH DEIDRE FOR THE VERY GENEROUS DONATION and for your very kind comment and suggestions. I'm so glad you liked my take on the Cooper case as I put a lot into it. I think this will give you a little smile too - the first time I read your comment I thought you meant you were a 20 year old pilot and I thought 'wow, that person is really on the ball. They're only 20 and they've already qualified as a pilot. I was still trying to figure out which way was up when I was 20'. Anyways, obviously I misread, but I thought my little ditzy moment would give you a laugh (and perhaps you were a qualified pilot at 20 for all I know).
I like this video with the small details.
Yes! This is great! You're not the only TH-cam to cover this, but you are the most credible!
Aww, thank you. I've been fascinated by the story for a long time. It just ages for me to work up to making a video on it as I knew it would take a lot of work (and it did - the FBI files are a total nightmare to wade through).
I cannot even imagine how much time this took you! Your attention to detail is amazing. Thank you for this insightful look into a never to be resolved story. I agree with others that he didn’t survive the jump. Thank you for your hard work.☺️
You are so welcome. Thank you for such a lovely comment :-)
I've seen many documentaries on this case, but none by a responsible historian until now, nor even one that wasn't built around a surprise reveal of his identity at the end. Cooper has been positively and definitively identified as dozens of guys on American cable television, and like Jack the Ripper and Zodiac, ever will be. Your assessment of him at the end is very interesting, and mirrors my dissent on the over-mystified Zodiac: an attention-starved psychopath who devised his ingenious codes from an easily-identified book available in libraries. But why do we sort of like Cooper? I enjoy his apparent good humor, and find myself hoping he landed safely. He didn't actually hurt anyone, as you noted; in exchange for the stress and a few dollars, he left them a clip-on tie and a story for the ages. Beyond that, he seems like a little guy who made an awfully big noise, and may we always find space for that.
Yes, I think people overhype serial killers too, because like you, I think they're nutters usually living very boring little lives and aren't the kinds of geniuses that people make them out to be. There's nothing special about them except how sick and twisted they are and that shouldn't be celebrated. Cooper at least, for all his faults, doesn't seem to have fallen into that category at all.
Thank you for a delightful look at the D.B. Cooper mystery. As a resident of the region, of course I've heard and read many theories about this bizarre and puzzling incident. I agree that the hijacker really screwed up and probably came to grief. A wet night in a Pacific Northwest woodland at that time of year in that kind of weather without any protective clothing is not survivable. My only explanation about the bundle of notes found later (you didn't mention the massive volcanic eruption of Mt. St. Helens in May 1980, which could easily have destroyed traces of a body or other artifacts along with all of the other destruction it caused) is that it somehow got accidentally picked up and transported and then dropped again without anybody being aware of it, sometime after the hijacker came to grief--maybe on floating debris in the river? How, I cannot imagine! There is still some hope that electronic devices and/or DNA data bases might still yield some clues, but the chances seem pretty remote.
Oh poo. You're right. I should have mentioned the eruption. Funnily enough I was just watching a documentary about it last night. It was terrifying. It looked like half the side of the mountain just blew off!
@@HistoryCalling That is exactly what happened. At the time, we lived over 100 miles away and I found ash on my car that morning (before we knew about the eruption). The Toutle River was clogged with mud and debris, and all river commerce in and out of Portland was halted for a long time. It was a huge mess. One of my friends lost his fiancee, who had gone to spend the weekend in the area. And smaller eruptions and ash fall continued for months. This was long after the actual hijacking, of course, but it changed the landscape quite a bit.
This is the most concise telling of the story I've heard.
Thank you. I suppose it helps that I didn't go through a bunch of suspects. I just didn't think there was any point.
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Long time fan of your content, but an even longer time Portlander and Oregonian, I am very excited that you are covering an important piece of our history. Thanks 👍🏽.
I'm so excited to get your take on this!!
Thank you. It's one of the topics I've been wanting to do since I started my channel, but I knew it would take a lot of work to put together and kept putting it off.
I was waiting for you to at least reference the Loki show somewhere towards the end!
Thank you, for yet another awesome video. I knew most of the details discussed here, but some were new to me. And it is always such a pleasure to hear you break down something. The mysterious the better!
Maybe he’d been in the military and as part of his training had to parachute out of planes, thus accounting for his knowledge (however scant) of aircraft. People dressed up to fly in the 70’s. If he’d dressed like they do today he would have been noticed. There are ways to keep warm with your underclothes. Having said that, I don’t think he survived either, but like you I wish that the FBI had more foresight so we could at least know who he is. Fascinating subject, HC. Take care.
Yes, I wondered too if he had a background like that. It would also help to explain how he held his nerve.
Yes, 'Thermal Underwear' was absolutely available in the early 70's
Love this! I had not heard the part about the placard before! I had to look it up because the Toutle River was impacted by Mt Saint Helens. The town itself is East of the flow though so I don’t think the lahar would have covered any remains.
You are absolutely right that it was a poor plan on Cooper’s part, November in the Cascades is dark, windy, cold and wet. I had always imagined the flight path being further to the West with him jumping closer to Vancouver. I think you are right that he perished, he probably got eaten by a bear.
Other people mentioned Mt St Helen's and I wish I'd included it now, though honestly, like you, I think he was food for the forest animals long before that so I don't think his remains were still out there to be covered by ash or anything.
First I’d heard about the placard as well. 👍
Having watched countless cases of people who "vanished into thin air" in wooded and mountainous areas of the USA I have learned several things:
"searched extensively" means maybe 30 people and 4 dogs muddled about looking within a fairly small area that was the "best guess" of the local sheriff for a short period.
The forests are unimaginably huge
A parachutist caught high in an evergreen tree in 1971 will probably never be found
Haha, your comment made me smile because I think you're probably spot on about what 'searched extensively' means. On a side note, the whole sheriff system in America is odd to me because as I understand it, they're elected and don't necessarily have any background in law enforcement? I don't even really understand what their relationship to bodies like the police and FBI are. They aren't part of those groups, but they're still law enforcement? Does that not become a jurisdictional nightmare? Sorry. I got distracted. :-)
The head sheriff is elected but all of the sheriff's deputies are basically regular cops who handle county issues outside of the cities' boundaries in the county. A central 911 emergency dispatch is used and they determine who is sent out on calls depending on the location of the caller/incident 👍🏼
Depending on the situation and the personalities involved, jurisdiction between the various law enforcement agencies can become fraught.
Yours and Lemmino coverage of this story are such high quality, normal TV is deceased.
Well I take that as quite the complement because Lemmino is brilliant. I actually only did this video because there were some additional things I thought I could talk about that he didn't cover and I knew I wouldn't be looking at suspects so I wouldn't be treading on his toes in that area either, so to speak. I wish I had his editing skills. The videos are just so beautiful to look at.
I couldn't help giggling at the start: an old friend & colleague of mine is called Dan Cooper - but, while he is the right age, I don't think he ever went to the US and his Irish accent is as pronounced as yours!! Still, it made me smile...
I’d be wary of him…🥸 haha
Haha. Well, maybe he was just really good at faking a north American accent :-)
I love your aviation history videos! So fascinating :)
Thank you. I actually created this one and the MH370 one back to back, even though they're being released months apart so I was on a real aviation kick at the time. :-)
Maybe ex military, used to parachuting i would think. 10.000 feet is very high for a blind jump, and no Altimeter, makes it bloody dangerous. I did some basic jumps in forces and an open release after exit was around 3000 ft, so the Jump would be very hazardous, but the way he would have had things hanging below him makes sense, as back in the 40s, 50s Americans would jump that way with with equipment etc. So it can be done. Great watching thx.
Yes, I wondered what his background was too and some sort of military definitely seems possible. It might help to explain how he held his nerve too, if he'd been trained to do so.
@@HistoryCalling seems very possible.
It was Richard McCoy. Ex military paratrooper.
I cant imagine how stressful this would have been for the flight attendants and pilots, I would imagine that after they were safe the relief was so great as to be painful
Worse than that is also the fact that the story has followed them around ever since. Tina Mucklow in particular has suffered considerable harassment from Cooper conspiracy nuts.
I remember seeing this on the news when I was just starting in grade school. It is a local legend these days in the Seattle area, and it is a case I actually hope never gets solved. There was a documentary I watched years ago that said it was possible, if Cooper didn't survive his jump, that his remains might have been buried under a thick coating of ash from the May 18, 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens. That same documentary suggested that Cooper had probably had military training - paratrooper? - and that he could have been wearing thermal undergarments in prep for the jump. A hasty, possibly sloppy plan for a hijacking? Maybe, but the authorities still don't know who he is, and they have not caught him.
Yes, someone else mentioned Mt St Helen's and I wish I'd mentioned it now. I wonder if thermal undies would have been enough for what he ended up doing though? Part of me hopes he did survive. It's a better ending than going splat in Oregon.
@@HistoryCalling If you do get a chance, check out videos on the eruption of Mt. St Helens. It was HUGE. The landslide that preceded the ash cloud was the biggest landslide known, and the eruption itself was the worst in recorded North American history.
@@HistoryCalling”Splat in Oregon” would be a good punk band name
According to marvel it was loki 😂
I know :-) Don't think Tom Hiddlestone was around back then though.
Well I think he was time travelling. But in the movies tor said he is 1500 years old .
And odin is fighting the frost giants in 960 ad ( or around that date) for thor and loki to be known they must have come to earth before.
And now he's dropped into the 21st century to be a famous movie actor. I like it. There's a whole movie just in that very story :-)
@@HistoryCalling definitely
Loki can come to my house! I'd hide him!
Never really looked at this the way you have shown it. Always thought he had died, and you gave several good reasons. Personally if he had survived the jump where he was wouldn't been good with all the wild animals in that part of the country. The money could have fallen out of the sack and just simply landed there. I guess we will never really know. Looking forward to the next one. Thank you HC
Thanks Vernon. It would have been a miracle if he'd survived the jump I think, even more so if he was in a fit state to hike through the woods in a business suit, carrying whatever he still had of the money. Personally, I think he was toast within minutes of exiting the plane. It's a great story though.
I totaly agree HC, the jump was absoulutly nuts to attempt it at night not knowing where he was going to land, in my opinon he never survived it, thank you HC as always. 😊
Yes, I think he was dead within minutes of exiting the plane (depending how long it took to float down). He certainly made splashy exit though, we have to give him that.
I don't think I ever heard of this event before - this sounds so crazy to me! Reading through the comments and pulling together what you told us and what people familiar with the region said in the comments, I think we have an individual with few personal ties, so probably no siblings or at least none that were still in regular contact, parents likely already deceased or otherwise unlikely to miss him, and no close friends. That, plus the events you describe here, lead me to suspect some kind of mental breakdown - depression compounded by some recent events? Traumatic loss of someone or serious work disputes he didn't feel he could deal with adequately? He was a teenager or maybe a young adult during the years of WW2, maybe he got some basic parachute training there or in connection with other conflicts the US was involved in. (wasn't the Korean war in the fifties?) I agree it probably wasn't too indepth, since if he had more knowledge he would have been better prepared for a nighttime jump in bad weather and heavily wooded uneven terrain. I absolutely agree with your comments at the end though, I think it was most likely he didn't survive the jump, landed in such a way he wasn't found and even if he initially survived the landing, probably deceased shortly afterwards. Though frankly, I do not believe his body stayed intact, since that would have meant somebody should have found the parachutes sometime, given that they were likely made from some kind of plastic and therefore unlikely to desintegrate quickly. Also, weren't the seventies the height of nylon materials in clothes? That suggests to me there should have been plenty artificial materials that should have survived for years afterwards to give a clue somebody died there. It hasn't, so the material was spread far and wide and/or covered up by subsequent events like the Mt. St. Helens eruption.
I think the parachutes were silk (but that's just off the top of my head and I put this video together a couple of months ago, so I could be misremembering). Like you I think he mustn't have had anyone close to him, or I think he'd have been matched with a missing person's report and I also suspect some kind of parachute training at some stage, however rudimentary.
This was really well done. Thanks for doing it! 👏
You're right, of course. The jump almost certainly killed him. But it was still an audacious heist and remains a compelling mystery.
You told it very well.
Thank you :-)
I confess, I am D.B Cooper. Great video!
Well, do feel free to share the wealth then :-)
@@HistoryCalling No, I am Dan Cooper. That other guy is a fraud.
How exciting to have you amongst us ,do you love the storytelling,is it accurate?
Citizen what ?
@@edortiz4496 Imposter!! The only way to settle this is for you to watch the 2014 movie 'Bigfoot vs. D.B. Cooper'.
In my opinion, this case really harkens back to the romantic days of the Highwaymen. A perfect gentleman who commits a crime without hurting anyone. Other than a lot of stress to the crew.
Hmm, I dunno. I have a feeling those highwaymen were indeed romanticised. I wouldn't have wanted to come up against one of them. I agree though that 'Cooper' ultimately didn't physically hurt anyone except probably himself and that's a big part of the reason I like this story. It doesn't have the kind of tragic ending that say, the Princes in the Tower does.
I absolutely love that you did a video on this! As an American, that grew up hearing about this, your video still had facts I never knew. I’m a law-enforcement officer also, and just looking at the story logically, I have to contend that the simplest and most real explanation is what you concluded. His entire operation and plan gives way to this fantastical idea that he was going to parachute out of a plane in a business class suit, land on the ground, and simply walk away with a sack full of money. It feels very James Bond, and not practical at all.
Thank you. I'm glad I was able to give you something new as I know the case has been chewed over a lot by other people :-)
good one HC - I remember Walter Cronkite no less covering it when I was 12 - ty for fun content - 🛸✨
Uh oh. I'm sorry to say I don't know who that is :-\
@@HistoryCalling - he's well worth a Google and maybe a video
I just Googled him. 'The most trusted man in America'. Politicians (excluding the women) would kill to get that moniker. Of course, that's probably why they aren't so trusted. :-)
@@HistoryCalling - he had an amazing life in a very different time - even this poor Canadian trusted every word he said - it was when honour and duty were a way of life for the best amongst us - God bless Walter
I've seen so many documentaries on D/DB Cooper, where his money went, did he survive - great to get a well-researched British perspective. Thank you!
Thank you very much :-)
It's incredible that the hairs and the cigarettes were lost. I wonder if agents kept them as souvenirs.
I mean, stranger things have happened. People use to nick the bones of famous people (like the Princes in the Tower) and keep them, replacing them with animals bones to try to cover their tracks.
It’s one of my favourite historical mysteries too. And I agree that it’s highly unlikely that he survived that jump. Better to have not jumped at all!
Yeah, I wouldn't make that jump for $1m, never mind $200k (or whatever it would be today, adjusted for inflation).
Well, if he jumped out into the woods, he more than likely died in those woods. I've seen that area, it is really dense country out there.
Yeah, it doesn't look too hospitable in the old footage I found of it. He was bonkers to jump into that.
"And now for something completely different"
(I'm not griping, btw. I'm just enjoying the opportunity to quote Python)
No problem at all :-)
As an experienced skydiver, I am telling you there is very, very little chance he survived that jump.
I SkyDived one time- On August 13th, 2009, over Beautiful Snohomish, Washington at 8,000 Feet.
Your knowledge would have not made sense as much as you insisted ,that’s the roll ,suppress logic
I've been fascinated by this case for years now. I'm so glad you covered it! While the most likely scenario is that he died somewhere in the dense PNW forest, my favorite conspiracy theory is that it was an inside job and he never left the plane.
Also a note on his "McChord is only 20 minutes from Tacoma" comment as I grew up in Washington State and went to school in Tacoma near McChord. While it's true that the base is only 20 minutes-ish from Tacoma, Sea-Tac Airport is north of Tacoma in between Tacoma and Seattle. Maybe then, before i was born, it was only 20 minutes but when I last lived in that part of the state it was at least a 45 minute drive. So perhaps he knew the bases but not the local surroundings quite so well.
If he "never left the plane" how come the bundles of notes were found years later... doesn't make sense to waste all that money on someone finding it by chance. Just my humble opinion ...
@@copaloadofthisIt's not realistic, just creative.
Love your Theory about Cooper being a sort of scrambled egg as he hit the ground with a smash a really enjoyable video modern history can at times be very interesting.thank you ❤
Thank you. Yes, I don't usually do things this modern (largely for copyright reasons actually), but the FBI files are public domain so that facilitated this video.
Very good documentary. What you could have mentioned, and what probably is fairly unknown, was that there were several copycats who tried to mimic Cooper's heist. Every single one failed and the perpetrators were either caught or killed. It's even speculated that one of the copycats was the real Cooper and tried the same stunt again, suggesting that the first one was successful.
I love your frank (true) declaration that Cooper was stupid! What really got me laughing, though, was your observation at minute 37 that gun crazy Americans would naturally think to give a 22 year old flight attendant a pistol so that she could stride back into the plane and riddle Cooper (and his bomb!) with bullets!! Thank you for this. I enjoy all your videos.
Thank you. The g** theory was a bit of a joke really, as I don't think they would have done that and I'm sure she wouldn't have countenanced it. Still, stranger things have happened, including on that very night.
@@HistoryCallingthe poot poot theory made me chuckle. It would have taken him by surprise anyway.
This was well worth my time to watch.
Thank you :-)
Thanks for the new video!!
You're welcome. Enjoy. It's an incredible story.
@@HistoryCallingoooh I’ll have to listen to it carefully
Have to give you a big hand for getting the pronunciation of Toutle and Washougal correct.
Thank you. I often don't know if I'm getting place names right until the video airs and then I either get complemented, or lambasted.
An ex-paratrooper would know how to jump with extra kit dangling below (look at the sort of kit the Market Garden troops dropped with), so could have intended to attach the main and reserve chutes to himself (with the money rucksack hanging). If it were me, I would demand multiple chutes merely to increase the odds of getting an un-tampered rig with, like you said, the intimation that the other chutes were to be used for an innocent hostage. Veteran paratroopers would also be used to jumping without much more than battledress clothing, so high altitude temperature could be nothing more than a temporary inconvenience. It could also be that he was not jumping into a 'personal survival' situation, and may have had a well provisioned accomplice within reasonable distance of his drop-zone. The 'bomb case' went with him, so it might have been not just a bomb but also radio equipment, plus compass and maps.
So now that I've listened...I also think he probably died in the jump, but it's probably much sadder if that's the case, and not just because of the obvious. If he lived, his family may not have missed him, especially if he was Canadian, as while it was Thanksgiving week in the U.S., that's different in Canada. But if he died...either a report of him being missing somehow never found the FBI, or no one reported him missing.
While we know now that John List was not Dan Cooper, at the time, that theory did make a lot of sense, since when the hijacking took place, List was already on the run, but the bodies of his family had not been found yet, so no one knew he was missing at the time and therefore no one would have recognized him from the news nor would anyone back home have pondered if it was him. Had we never caught John List, I probably would be convinced that they were one and the same.
There's a bar in the Pacific Northwest that does Dan Cooper lookalike contests around Halloween every year, and as much as I think he died in the jump, I like to believe sometimes that he has participated in that contest, and I would find it even funnier if he competed and lost.
Charlie Chaplin came in third in a Charlue Chaplin look alike contest. So you never know. However, I tend to think it's unlikely Cooper survived to enter the contest.
I hadn't heard of John List before, but I just Googled and oh my word, what a psycho! Cooper would certainly be a cheap Halloween costume at least, if one already owned a black suit.
@@HistoryCalling A psycho indeed! The Forensic Files episode on him (S1E09) is really good, especially in how they managed to ultimately catch him via America's Most Wanted. When they caught List the FBI did question him on this hijacking, but he denied it (he also denied his true identity for months though) and the FBI have since said they no longer consider him a suspect. But it was a good thought at the time, since no one would have connected him to it since no one knew he was missing, and someone like that truly did have nothing to lose.
I had never heard about this case before! It's terrifying and fascinating--that poor stewardess. She is the true hero of this story, keeping her cool like that.
He does sound mentally deranged, as if the money was less important than just making people's lives miserable. I think it's terrible people find anything heroic about this. Yet another reason NOT to complain about airport security, though.
Also, wow, in today's money, $200K would not be worth all that trouble.
I know. She was remarkable, especially as she really was frightened. She didn't have our hindsight after all and truly thought she might die. Yes, I'm a big proponent of security, even if it is annoying having to take my shoes off.
In "today's money" that $200K would be worth around 1.5 Million...
Oh I am here for this one! So much mystique for a guy that I believe most definitely died in the desert in a harebrained get rich quick kidnapping scheme.
Great video!!!
And thank you for being here :-)
This was fantastic, a fun departure from your usual content! I think you’re probably right, he probably went splat on a mountain in a remote area. There could even be John Doe remains found that were never connected to him because of decomposition and delay in discovery. I’m glad you mentioned the mental/emotional trauma experienced by the flight attendants and cabin crew, I’m sure that affected them their whole lives - that would be terrifying.
Really enjoyed the video, and great historical detective work. Being from the UK and not born at the time this happened, the first I heard of the story was from Marvel, so it was great to hear the actual historical facts (of which I note you never actually excluded Loki 😉)
Well, I mean I didn't wanna exclude Loki as a suspect cause you just never know :-)
In truth, i knew nothing about this. Nor, had i heard of it. Thanks HC
Ah, then welcome to the D.B. Cooper madness :-)
This was awesome!
Have you made any episodes on Spanish royalty? My oldest took Spanish and they spent a couple weeks going on Spanish history. It was FASCINATING.
No, although I have one in mind. My foreign royalty videos don't tend to do well unfortunately. Even Scottish videos struggle! People just seem to want the English royals and even then, when I go pre-Wars of the Roses viewer numbers plummet. It's rather limiting and annoying actually because as you say, there's so much other, amazing history out there, but people won't even try it. :-(
@@HistoryCallingThat’s quite unfortunate. I really enjoy the honest take on all of your videos and not giving into the hype. This video was a perfect example of that.
Such an interesting case! I think DB Cooper survived and did it to prove he could instead for the money.
I kinda hope he did too (even though I doubt that's the case). It would make for a much better ending to the story.
Thank for you saying what the evidence in this case tell us: Cooper was not a genius, this was not an amazing plan. His jump was a leap of faith more than anything. I also take issue with the idea that some have that he was a skydiver either recreationally or in the military. Experienced skydivers know not to make the mistakes that Cooper made. Outstanding video! Been following this one for many years and I feel I learned a few things in here that don't get mentioned much.
Love your voice , a great take on db cooper
I never expected you to do a video on Dan Cooper. It's the best I've seen. I agree he most likely died. I think he may have been diagnosed with a terminal illness and didn't have anyone who would care (therefore no matching missing person reports), so he decided to leave mark. And if that's true, then bravo
Thank you very much. Yes, I wondered if he was ill too and just wanted to go out with a bang.
As a historian and a very good one You know that you can't apply what we know now to back then. At the time of his jump nobody knew what you could do with DNA. I'm on my molecular biologist and believe me the stuff we can do now wasn't even dreamed of. So you can't blame them for destroying samples or getting rid of things.
It's absolutely true that they didn't know about DNA and it's not that I blame them for not storing things for DNA analysis exactly, but in my view they should have kept the evidence on the basis that you just never know what will become useful or how. DNA had been discovered after all and its use in crime cases was only about 15 years away. There are tons of other cases which have been solved because such evidence was properly stored for long periods of time and I just thought that they could have done better. Even the FBI files on the case are a disaster zone and just a nightmare to try to wade through. None of this extends to modern agents of course.
@@HistoryCallingI understand your frustration but in many cases evidence was just destroyed. Quite common in that time. And 15 years, in science, is quite a long time. Nobody at that time, really had an idea of what they could do with DNA. Just, please, believe me on that one. At the time of his jump the fluid membrane model of the cell which is so accepted now as to be ridiculous, wasn't even in textbooks or anything like it. We learned it from Scientific American reprints. Molecular biology didn't even really start till the late 1980s.
I totally understand your frustration on this because I'm frustrated about it too. But just believe me that we didn't even dream that we could use DNA in this way back in the day. In the '70s the fluid membrane model wasn't even accepted yet. Not in textbooks, we learned it from scientific American reprints. Molecular biology where things such as DNA testing became the norm didn't really start till the late '80s. And in the '70s because people didn't know what they could do with evidence in the future, evidence many times was just tossed out. You had a finite amount of space to store things.
@@HistoryCallingThe FBI is a BIG mess now.
I agree that he likely went splat. Great video!
Thank you. Yeah, I can't see him surviving the fall either. Even the cold might have killed him before he hit the earth.
Hello history calling, I was surfing Through comments, and this commenter shared A story of his/her past. They said their great grandfather was German and great grandmother was French and they refused to learn the other language.
Must have made arguments very interesting!
This was really interesting I'd never heard about it. Have you made a video, or considered making one, about Victor Grayson?
No, I'm not familiar with him I'm afraid, though I just Googled him and his disappearance does look interesting.
Well this is severely outside your usual subject matter...neat! So cool to see you branching out! :)
Things have NOT been massively tightened up since the 70’s
Oh dear :-(
Arguably, things have gotten much worse 🙃😬
Well as a prolific information auditor I beg to differ
When I told Dad there was an episode of the mystery of that guy on Expedition Unknown Dad told me he was obsessed with the story back in the day
You have to let him watch this too then and he can see if he thinks I did a decent job with it :-)
Ditto what most everybody has commented - awesome work, maybe the best compilation of known evidence available - surely I'll recommend as the best thing to watch on this case. Btw, a couple of things that stick in my mind:
--- To me, the "Dan Cooper" comic books are very very interesting - really hard to believe that was just a coincidence - not only the name, but also the Dan Cooper comic character is time and again drawn as wearing a business suit in the course of his derring-do parachute jump adventure.
--- If DB Cooper was indeed inspired by the comic book, then I think that supports your theory that ole DB may not have been the brightest bulb - if he was in, say, his forties, in terms of age, and could be inspired to actually do something real based on the the fantastical comic book depictions, then he had some serious neuro-divergence, imo
--- As to him possibly being a Canadian, then he must have been a Canadian who had no trace of a Canadian accent - as an American I can tell you that is it very easy to detect the Canadian influence, particularly given that he apparently had a protracted series of conversation with the flight attendants. Not only is the overall cadence slightly, but noticeably different as somehow "not quite American", but there are the telltale pronunciations like "doobt" for "doubt" and the use of "eh" as just a punctuation. Of course he could have been someone who had lived in the States for a while and so had lost his "Canadianisms", but still ...
--- I wish we knew a lot more about the conversations that DB had with the flight attendants - I saw one retired FBI agent who had been involved from Day 1 in the case remark later that he thought DB a stone cold "con' - don't know if he meant, "convict" (presumably former convict), or a "con man" in terms of a manipulator - and that DB used a lot of "unspeakable" language in his conversation, Again, don't know what the FBI Agent may have considered "unspeakable", but would be interesting to know if his language was exceptionally rough, which might give a better idea as to his social demographic.
--- As for the money - and this really goes for all of what have remained of DB - it's hard to believe that absolutely nothing was found of his other "effects" - e.g., the parachute itself, some item of his clothings, esp shoes, etc. The region pinpointed by law enforcement analysts at the time was pretty thoroughly swept and altho I agree that is remote terrain and a very large area, nonetheless, hard to believe they came up with nothing - and that no hunter roaming around in subsequent did not come across any evidence of his demise.
What do I think? a/k/a my "two cents", lol - I tend to think even if by some freak of fortune he survived the jump, it would be entirely against any reasonable odds that, by himself, he got out of that region on his own. But, if he managed to hold on to the money, then, perhaps - just perhaps - someone came along, found him, and for, let's say $100K, helped him make a get-away. But then why didn't any of the money turn up as spent? Well, back then tracking money wasn't as "computerized" as it is today and all the FBI could do was put out the list of currency bill serial numbers and ask for folks to be on the lookout; so, seems, to me, there likely were some major loopholes to that sort of "net".
Anyway, thanks again! What a mystery!!! :-)
0:05 the sketch on the left looks kinda like the police sketch of the Zodiac! Tbf many of the police sketches barely look like people, though😭
I love these mysteries!! And your approach to them almost always makes me safer in a conclusion- at least the most likely one logically speaking :)
Have a nice week🙏🙏
ok looking at it again I was tweaking a bit lol it’s mainly the thin nose that makes it look similar😭
Ahh! I see what you mean. The chances of it being the same guy are super low though.
@@HistoryCalling oui, Ig the police sketchers had a type😭😭
Yeah, any time I've seen people caught and then looked back at those sketches, they never look particularly like the person.
@@HistoryCalling they rarely look like a anyone🥲 it’s the type of thing I can see the “Ancient Aliens” guys using as “proof” that Aliens exist and roam around the earth committing crimes, infiltrated😨😨
I do like a lot of your analysis on this case. Especially regarding the man's lack of knowledge. As far as the money never making it into circulation. If the man was Canadian couldn't he have exchanged thr money up there, which would mean it may not have been traceable.
A person of interest (IMHO) thay no one really looked into, is a man named Alex. Cooper. He lived in a part of Canada near Washington state and was suspected of a robbery in the past. He disappeared in the late eighties when he needed to register for something. (He'd changed his name) He's a case you could look into
Goddamn Cooper 8 cig butts??😭
"Went splat in Oregon" is going to be my new catch phrase.
Haha, happy to help :-)
@@HistoryCalling ❤❤❤
I admit, I haven’t watched many DB Cooper documentaries, but this one must certainly be among the finest. I appreciate the reasons you give for discrediting DB Cooper as some type of genius. He was probably a narcissist who wasn’t as smart as he thought himself to be. I also appreciate the reasons you gave for why he probably didn’t survive. There is some satisfaction in the idea that he did not get away with his outlandish crime to enjoy all that money in peace.
I think he made it and got away to Mexico and enjoyed the rest of his days down there.
Plus he didn’t hurt anyone and the money was insured I can see him being a hero and sticking it to the man.
You did a great job on the video btw
Wonderfully informative and beautifully paced. I'm so glad that you highlighted the ham-fisted nature of his plans. He's certainly never seemed to me to belong to the 'criminal mastermind' category into which so many pundits wish to thrust him. I think he died after he jumped from the aeroplane.
That was wonderful: a neat, thorough, objective analysis of a mystifying case. Because of his choices (in clothing, etc.) so many questions arise, as you point out. One I have concerns his offering a tip to two of the air attendants. Specifically, his lack of concern about the serial numbers on the bills being traceable. No, he was not a genius mastermind. At base, I so want to know who it was he had a "grudge" against! What prompted this whole dramatic farrago? At any rate, your analysis is valuable, and others interested in this fascinating (to use an overworked term but apt here) case will want to study your thoughts on the subject.
There is nothing unusual about the conflicting or flawed eyewitness testimony in this case. Accident investigators will tell you that all eyewitness testimony, 100% of the time in 100% of cases, is similarly flawed and error-prone due to the human brain's intrinsic limitations, biases, and expectations. The fact that we revere it so highly in criminal court should frighten all of us.
Yes, that's a good point.
Really a mystery😮
A little-known fact is three air marshals were observing the flight during boarding. I was one of them ...
Though our routine duty was in-air security, we were periodically rotated to ground duty, augmenting U.S. Marshals who were permanently assigned. Most of the airlines flying out of Portland participated in a profile program, where passengers meeting certain criteria were pulled aside, questioned and often searched. Northwest Airlines was not a participant in the program; thus, our presence at the gate was more as a potential deterrent as, while on ground duty we wore our U.S. Customs uniforms (the U.S. Marshals were ununiformed.) Sadly, because Cooper did nothing to stand out, we stood helplessly while he boarded. It's worth saying that most of the airlines at PDX had magnetometers at their boarding gates; again, Northwest did not have them at the time of Cooper's departure.
Shortly thereafter, Northwest did get into the profile program. As a result, with one other, I was the first air marshal to originate from Portland, at request of Northwest.
The idea of the money being purposely buried where it was is ridiculous. Who would be that stupid? Cooper's clothes - we need to remember in 1971 people still dressed up to fly on planes. He may have just wanted to appear as a business man to blend in with other passengers. $20 for a flight? Paying cash for a drink on board - do they even sell alcohol anymore in coach class.
I think they do still sell booze, yes. I wish it wasn't on sale in airports or on planes though. It would really reduce the number of drunk passengers. Sadly, there's too much money in it so I'm sure it'll continue to be sold.
I was a senior in high school and living in Portland area when all this transpired …not that much went on in the North west at that time …and Cooper wasn’t that much dumber than the FBI …everyone just enjoyed the mystery of it all…and dare I say they still do ! Thanks so much for covering it !
I agree with your SPLAT! theory. Sasquatch disposed of the remains. Since Sasquatches don't use paper money, it was probably used for bartering purposes. 😊😂😅
Haha 😅
Excellent video on. a very different topic . I must admit I don’t remember the case but I was living in Dublin so it probably didn’t get big publicity. He probably died on jumping from the plane & was never found. Possibly he was eaten by a bear or other such animal. But he hijacked a plane got paid quite a lot of money & didn’t kill anyone. So not as violent as others of that era. But I think the case was very badly handled by the FBI . In these days he would have probably been identified by his DNA. Good one. I enjoyed it 😊
Ah, I love Dublin, although it has been looking a bit more run down the last couple of times I've been there and they're obviously having a lot of political and social problems at the moment which I'll not digress into. Yeah, I think a bear or some other forest animal(s) probably made a meal of him too.
Typical FBI and no I don’t think they’ve tightened up based on some very recent massive screw ups. Loved the video. Having my husband watch this one now. I’ve told him often how much I love your videos. Thank you!
Great video!
Great video, as always.
I have 2 thoughts. The first is that the culture around flying was quite different now than it was then. I don't just mean the lack of airport security, i mean the thoughts about it in general. Today, flying is almost common. Everyone at least knows someone who has flown before. That was not necessarily the case in 1971. Flying was an Event (capital letter deliberate...and damn i hope i used the right capital, there). I was born nearly a decade after the highjacking happened so i'm not soeaking from personal experience here, but my understanding is that because flying was an Event, it wasn't uncommon to dress nicely. I think it was customary to dress nicely and he would have stood out if he'd dressed in anything other than business attire. Again, i wasn't even alive at that time and have no experience flying back then but i really think he was thinking more about bkending in with other passengers than with jumping out of the plane. I honestly don't know, though.
My second thought is about thd thought that he was lucky they didn't give the flight attendent a firearm. Yes, the US is gun crazy. I think the gun crazy are crazy themselves and no one realizes that the US was always this way. It wasn't. It wasn't until the events at Waco (i think in 1991) that people lost their f***ing minds about "protecting themselves from the government" and demanding access to rifles modified so that they're effectively (hope i used the right one there, too) assault rifles but, because of the way they're modified, they are still technically legal. Waco was the location of a compound where a man who took the name David Koresh took over and was collecting firearms illegally. That's why the feds went in there; he had firearms he shouldn't have had. There was a standoff for weeks and it ended so needlessly tragically due to mismanagement by the feds. I'm not going to go into details but it's a hell of a rabbit hole to go down, if you're interested. And make sure to assess the biases of what you read and watch about it. Waco and the branch davidians was the start of everyday americans arming themselves like crazy, in my not-so humble opinion.
Why did i bring this up? Well, again, while i do remember waco, i wasn't alive in 1971 so this is my opinion. I don't know if it would have even occurred to authorities in charge of handling the situation to hand an untrained woman a weapon. Today...yes, i can absolutely see that happening
I can't remember where in the US it is but one state made it legal for teachers to bring firearms to school. I'm not sure if they're required to have liscences for the guns or training on how to use them so yes, i can absolutely see a flight attendent being handed a gun dependibf on where the plane landed, but not in 1971.
Last bonus thoughts:
I agree that he likely died on impact.
Last bonus thought: many apologies for any weird words or crazy misspellations. The MS is acting up, and both vision and fine motor control are hard.
Yes, I agree it was more of an event, though I don't think you necessarily had to dress up. Like you I wasn't born yet, so I'll need to ask older relatives who flew back then. The little aside about Mucklow being given a weapon was more of a joke than anything else. I don't think she would have countenanced that and they wouldn't have wanted to risk Cooper taking it off her. I'm familiar with Waco but I found it very interesting that you say that's what sparked America's particularly heavy interest in g**s. I'd never heard that before, though I can see how it could have happened. Thank you for such an interesting comment and no need to apologise for your typing. I had no trouble following you :-)
It's a sad state of affairs in the US that I took seriously a joke about sending in someone with a gun if it happened today. Whether or not they would have, the fact that I think it possible speaks to the state of affairs here.
And I feel sheepish. I can't always tell when something is a joke and something isn't.
And I just looked it up. Apparently 33 states allow teachers to bring firearms on campus.
Well Done!..