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D.B. Cooper's parachute possibly found By GENE JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer
The FBI is analyzing a torn, tangled parachute found buried by children in southwest Washington to determine whether it might have been used by famed plane hijacker D.B. Cooper, the agency said Tuesday.
Children playing outside their home near Amboy found the chute's fabric sticking up from the ground in an area where their father had been grading a road, agent Larry Carr said. They pulled it out as far as they could, then cut the parachute's ropes with scissors.
The children had seen recent media coverage of the case — the FBI launched a publicity campaign last fall, hoping to generate tips to solve the 36-year-old mystery — and they urged their dad to call the agency.
"When we went to the public, the whole idea was that the public is going to bring the answers to us," Carr said. "This is exactly what we were hoping for."
A man identifying himself as Dan Cooper — later mistakenly but enduringly identified as D.B. Cooper — hijacked a Northwest Orient flight from Portland, Ore., to Seattle in November 1971, claiming he had a bomb.
When the plane landed at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, he released the passengers in exchange for $200,000 and asked to be flown to Mexico. He apparently parachuted from the plane's back stairs somewhere near the Oregon border.
Agents doubt he survived because conditions were poor and the terrain was rough, but few signs of his fate have been found.
Carr spoke with the children's father, whom he declined to identify, early this month and learned the chute was white, the same color as Cooper's.
And when Carr overlaid the family's address onto a map investigators made in the early days of the investigation, he learned another encouraging fact: They lived right in Cooper's most probable landing zone, between Green and Bald mountains.
Carr hopped in his car and drove down. He dug around the property for about 45 minutes, unsuccessfully looking for a harness or other remains from the parachute, but the children weren't home, and the father wasn't sure exactly where they found it.
There are no obvious markings on the parachute to indicate whether it's the type Cooper used, a Navy Backpack 6 with a 26-foot canopy, Carr said. He's hoping a member of the public who has expertise in the parachutes will come forward and confirm whether it's the right kind before the FBI bothers to excavate the property. Barring that, the agency could turn to scientific analysis of the fabric.
"We've got to be pretty darn sure we're not wasting time and money here," he said.
If it is Cooper's parachute, that will solve one mystery — where he apparently landed — but it will raise another, Carr said.
In 1980, a family on a picnic found $5,880 of Cooper's money in a bag on a Columbia River beach, near Vancouver. Some investigators believed it might have been washed down to the beach by the Washougal River. But if Cooper landed near Amboy and stashed the money bag there, there's no way it could have naturally reached the Washougal.
"If this is D.B. Cooper's parachute, the money could not have arrived at its discovery location by natural means," Carr said. "That whole theory is out the window."
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Have always been interested in this case.
What do you think - did he survive the jump or not?
Will he ever be found (alive or dead)?
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I think he probably survived. I don't think it's so outlandish that he survives and they never hear from him again. I do think it's somewhat outlandish that he perishes and they never find a shred of evidence that he died.
DCR--you never heard of DB Cooper? Man, you need to think about moving out from under that rock you call home.
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I think he probably survived. I don't think it's so outlandish that he survives and they never hear from him again. I do think it's somewhat outlandish that he perishes and they never find a shred of evidence that he died.
DCR--you never heard of DB Cooper? Man, you need to think about moving out from under that rock you call home.
Plus, if he died, you'd think they would have found a body with the man hunt they did for him at the time. I think he had to have survived in order to avoid the authorities. All the years I lived in the desert, dead bodies have an uncanny way of being found. I can't add up all the ones I've read about that were hidden by people in remote areas to get away with murder, only to have them found weeks or months later.
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I think he probably survived. I don't think it's so outlandish that he survives and they never hear from him again. I do think it's somewhat outlandish that he perishes and they never find a shred of evidence that he died.
DCR--you never heard of DB Cooper? Man, you need to think about moving out from under that rock you call home.
I don't think that I have. If so, I don't remember this morning.
We had a bar in San Jose in the 80's called DB Coopers so I knew all about him. We used to go to a Comedy Club there and after the show you got free admission to DB Coopers.
I too think he lived for the same reasons Pariah gave, just too hard to believe they never found him if he died.
Of course that area has a huge population of sasquatches and nobody ever finds their dead bodies either.
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This isn't meant as a slam to anyone, but I really thought everyone knew about him. I guess I was wrong (but, good to know I know more than the rest of you).
I think I even did a report about him in elementary school. Didn't Treat Williams play him in a movie, too?
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This isn't meant as a slam to anyone, but I really thought everyone knew about him. I guess I was wrong (but, good to know I know more than the rest of you).
We had a bar in San Jose in the 80's called DB Coopers so I knew all about him. We used to go to a Comedy Club there and after the show you got free admission to DB Coopers.
I too think he lived for the same reasons Pariah gave, just too hard to believe they never found him if he died.
Of course that area has a huge population of sasquatches and nobody ever finds their dead bodies either.
What about the Hendersons?
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