I recently saw the Discovery Channel show that claimed it was Duane Weber and it was very convincing.
I’m questioning how they got a DNA sample out of a tie and how they could say with any certainty that it was Cooper’s. Assuming he didn’t bleed on the tie, I would guess they found a hair sample on the tie but, again, how can they be sure it was Cooper’s hair and how many hands could the tie have passed through before someone thought to preserve it as evidence? After all, by 1971 standards, the evidence one could have gleaned from it would be negligible.
Weber claimed to tell his wife on his deathbed in 1995 that he was “Dan Cooper”, not the publicized “D.B. Cooper” that the media called him. The wife had no idea who he was talking about and only found out after telling family members who then started researching. “Dan Cooper” would be a fitting alias for a “Duane Weber”, given the cadence of the name and the relative sound-alike quality.
Far from being a bungler, Cooper had to be aware that the plane he was on was one of the few commercial planes that allowed him to jump from the rear, rather than side exits. In addition, his note instructed the crew what speed and altitude they should travel at. Flying too high or too fast would have severely hampered his escape.
Weber also had an Air Force background as well as a criminal past in Washington state, two things that would have fit the profile. His photos around that time look like Cooper’s sketch although I felt the nose on Weber was more prominent.
The Discovery Channel used computer analysis of the Cooper sketch with photos of various could-have-beens and found Weber’s face matched the Cooper sketch most closely.
Weber said he buried the money after landing and planned to return for it a few years later but that he couldn’t remember where the burial site was and that the later explosion of Mt. St. Helen’s so altered the landscape that he decided the money could never be found.
FWIW, the Treasury Department claims that no money with serial numbers matching the ones Cooper left with have ever been recovered except for the $6000 or so found down river by kids in 1980.
These were my thoughts also. The DNA on the tie could have belonged to other passengers or someone at the airport. Unless the FBI knows something we don't, like he wiped his nose with the tie after he took it off or wiped his mouth or forhead, something, otherwise I wouldn't rule out someone based on the DNA on the tie.