Parachute found; was it D.B. Cooper's?

AP on Yahoo ^ | 3/25/08 | AP

[NormsRevenge]

SEATTLE - The FBI says it's analyzing a torn, tangled parachute found by children in Washington state to see whether it was used by plane hijacker D.B. Cooper.

Officials said Tuesday that children playing outside their home near Amboy, in southwest Washington, found the chute sticking up from the ground this month.

FBI agent Larry Carr says they pulled on the fabric as much as they could, then cut the ropes. They had seen recent media coverage of the Cooper case and urged their father to call the FBI.

Cooper hijacked a plane from Portland, Ore., to Seattle in 1971, got $200,000 and asked to be flown to Mexico. He parachuted from the plane somewhere near the Oregon border, and officials doubt he could have survived.

[Aristotelian]

D.B. Cooper stairs

[Westlander]

[HD1200]

Oh crap! See ya. I need to grab a flight...quick.

[mnehrling]

bump for later reading....

[tubebender]

Almost as good as UFOs plus a much better story line...

[Revolting cat!]

200 thou was nothing,even then, but he did invest it with Warren Buffett, and he’s now a billionaire. Don’t ask how I know, but I do.

[bmwcyle]

[visualops]

So do they think he’s at the end of the ropes? Squashed in the dirt?

[indcons]

I’ve wonder every once in a while about what happened to DB Cooper.

[Broker]

Could DBcooper mystery simply be that; nobody would confess to murder by disabling his parachute??

[tubebender]

Have you seen this?

[stylecouncilor]

ping

[Gondring]

Of course, his identity is not known for sure. The name he used to buy the ticket was “Dan Cooper,” and “D.B.” was a misunderstanding by the media.

[RDTF]

lol - this story has wings!

[Brian S. Fitzgerald]

"FBI agent Larry Carr says they pulled on the fabric as much as they could, then cut the ropes. "

Seems rather remiss the FBI didn't dig up the entire area immediately. I guess they need a search warrant before proceeding.

[Ingtar]

I liked what Journeyman did with the story. Too bad they cancelled the show before it had a chance.

[Gondring]

I’m still curious why the FBI doesn’t believe that Richard McCoy was Cooper.

[Birdsbane]

“So do they think he’s at the end of the ropes? Squashed in the dirt?”

This is Oregon and the proper terminology is...MUD.

[Brian S. Fitzgerald]

Wikipedia:

"That was the last time D. B. Cooper was known to be alive. The FBI believed his descent was at 20:13 over the southwestern portion of the state of Washington, because the aft stairway "bumped" at this time, most likely due to the weight of Cooper being released from the aft stairs. At the time Cooper jumped, the plane was flying through a heavy rainstorm, with no light source coming from the ground due to cloud coverage.[5] Because of the poor visibility, his descent went unnoticed by the United States Air Force F-106 jet fighters tracking the airliner.[22] He initially was believed to have landed southeast of the unincorporated area of Ariel, Washington, near Lake Merwin, 30 miles (48 km) north of Portland, Oregon.[23] Later information puts the jump location about 20 miles (32 km) farther east. To date, his precise landing zone remains unknown."

[BigCinBigD]

Pingo!

[killermosquito]

You seem to know a lot about this. Coincidence? I think not.

[NoControllingLegalAuthority]

Amboy is a small logging community in rural Clark County. My children went to school with kids from that community. They were jokingly referred to as “Ambodians.”

[Busywhiskers]

I saw him the other day sitting in a Starbucks in Portland with Jimmy Hoffa and Elvis.

[STONEWALLS]

....I’m not too proud of this, but at the time I was pulling for Cooper to make it...it reminded me of one of those heist movies back in the 1960s....his caper was very appealing...didn’t some of the money turn up in a creek bed later?....and doesn’t the FBI still have a man assigned to the case after all these years?

.....we had a similar thing here in the mountains of N.C back in the 80s....an ex-Vietnam green beret parachuted out of a smuggler’s plane into the national forest...he had a duffle bag of pure cocaine strapped to his body....something went wrong with the chute and the guy was killed....a bear wandered by, ripped open the duffel and ate a bunch of coke...it was too much for him and he died at the scene.

[peeps36]

There was a story about DB Cooper on the Discovery channel last month that tried to figure out if he was able to survive the jump. The conclusion pointed to him having a pretty good chance of surviving even if he landed in water. The stuntman who recreated the water landing found that the parachute and moneybag acted like a buoy that helped keep him afloat.

[FreePaul]

...remiss the FBI didn't dig up the entire area immediately.

Probably afraid that some "native American" tribe will claim some ancestor was buried in Washington state so it's a sacred burial ground.

[Rockitz]

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."

What if some of the money became separated from D.B. during the jump?

[Ken H]

It's hard to imagine he could have done much with the $200,000 beyond small cash transactions - even in 1971. He could have had a decent rental, and maybe a small cash business to launder the money.

I doubt that he could have bought a new Mercedes, for example, with cash and not have been busted. So at best, he might have lived a low to middle class lifestyle.

[vox_freedom]

Wonderful news if this is attached to the infamous DB Cooper. This newfound clue (the parachute) could finally provide the conclusion to this long mystery. Is DB dead and buried next to the parchute? Does it hold other clues such as blood and/or other forensics? Looking forward to the FBI investigation...

[NormsRevenge]

some pics of the chute here..

http://news.search.yahoo.com/search/news?ei=UTF-8&p=d.b.+cooper&c=yahoo_news&fr=&c=images

[Grampa Dave]

This will fire up more tv shows based on this find.

[vox_freedom]

Thanks, and this latest story gives additional information including a 2007 video by the FBI agent who is in charge of the case:

Seattle PI article, 3-26-2008

A few questions are prompted: did DB Cooper survive the jump, how did the money -- found in the river miles away -- get that distance from the chute, and who was/is he?

[JZelle]

DB Cooper must be seared into their memories.