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FBI Closes D.B. Cooper Investigation After 45 Years (oregonlive.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The Federal Bureau of Investigation says it is no longer investigating the unsolved mystery of D.B. Cooper. The bureau said Tuesday that it's "exhaustively reviewed all credible leads" during its 45-year investigation and has redirected those resources to other priorities. The investigation was of a man calling himself Dan Cooper (the media mistakenly called him D.B. Cooper and it stuck) who hijacked a Boeing 727 headed for Seattle after boarding at Portland International Airport on November 24, 1971. In Seattle, he claimed he had an explosive device and demanded parachutes and $200,000 in ransom money. After releasing the 36 passengers from the plane and receiving four parachutes and $200,000 in cash, Cooper ordered several of the crew members who were kept on board to fly to Mexico City. Shortly after returning to the air, Cooper jumped from the back of the plane and landed somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. No trace of Cooper was found, but several bundles of cash were found in 1980. The FBI says it has conducted searches, collected all available evidence and interviewed all identifiable witnesses, but none have resulted in identifying the hijacker.
This incident forced the FAA to issue a requirement to Boeing, Douglas and all US 727 and DC-9 operators to add a "Cooper vane" to the rear air stairs to prevent them being opened when the aircraft was moving.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
He also used a parachute to escape and had a lot of knowledge on how to actually open a commercial airlines doors IN FLIGHT.
From wikipedia:
The FBI task force believes that Cooper was a careful and shrewd planner. He demanded four parachutes to force the assumption that he might compel one or more hostages to jump with him, thus ensuring he would not be deliberately supplied with sabotaged equipment.[105] He chose a 727-100 aircraft because it was ideal for a bail-out escape, due not only to its aft airstair, but also the high, aftward placement of all three engines, which allowed a reasonably safe jump without risk of immediate incineration by jet exhaust. It had "single-point fueling" capability, a recent innovation that allowed all tanks to be refueled rapidly through a single fuel port. It also had the ability (unusual for a commercial jet airliner) to remain in slow, low-altitude flight without stalling; and Cooper knew how to control its air speed and altitude without entering the cockpit, where he could have been overpowered by the three pilots.[106] In addition, Cooper was familiar with important details, such as the appropriate flap setting of 15 degrees (which was unique to that aircraft), and the typical refueling time. He knew that the aft airstair could be lowered during flight—a fact never disclosed to civilian flight crews, since there was no situation on a passenger flight that would make it necessary—and that its operation, by a single switch in the rear of the cabin, could not be overridden from the cockpit.[107] He may even have known that the Central Intelligence Agency had been using 727s to drop agents and supplies behind enemy lines during the Vietnam War.[108]
The statute of limitations isn't an escape clause for law breakers, it is meant as a means to prevent prosecutors from delaying prosecution unreasonably or using it as a kind of blackmail. It basically says, you knew about this for X amount of time and couldn't be bothered to do anything about it so the court can't take you seriously. In many cases the clock doesn't start ticking on the statute until someone is aware the crime was committed.
There was this article from back in 2011 which a woman in Oregon claimed it was her Uncle, who had died in 1999. I don't know if it was ever proven or not.
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