Did Richard McCoy Jr just reveal himself as DB Cooper?
- In November 1971, a passenger known as Dan Cooper hijacked a flight in Oregon and demanded a ransom of $200,000.
- After receiving the ransom and parachutes, he leaped from the aircraft and was never seen again.
- Recent claims by siblings suggest that their father, Richard McCoy Jr., may have been the infamous hijacker, reigniting interest in the unsolved case.
In the United States, on the eve of Thanksgiving in 1971, a man using the alias Dan Cooper boarded a flight in Oregon with an ominous plan. He ordered a bourbon and soda upon settling into his seat and then claimed to have a bomb in his briefcase. The airline, responding to his threat, landed the plane in Seattle where Cooper provided a list of demands. Those demands included $200,000 in cash and four parachutes. It is believed that he requested the extra parachutes in an effort to convince authorities that he might take hostages. After authorities met his demands, the plane took off again. However, Cooper, wearing a suit and one parachute and carrying the ransom money, leaped out of the plane into the dark, cold air over southwest Washington State. Despite extensive investigations, Cooper was never found, and the case became one of the most popular unsolved mysteries in American history. Recently, siblings Chanté and Rick McCoy III suggested that their father, Richard McCoy Jr., may have been Cooper, citing a parachute found in their mother's shed. This claim reopens a long-standing debate about the identity of the infamous hijacker and raises questions about what really happened during that fateful flight in 1971.