DB Cooper plane hijacking case gets major update from FBI agent

One of the FBI agents who ran the investigation into the infamous DB Cooper 'skyjacking' has given a crucial update on the future of the case.

DB Cooper is the name given to an anonymous man who infamously hijacked an American commercial airplane before skydiving into the night with $200,000 (£158,604) in ransom money.

Giving the fake name of Dan Cooper when buying his ticket for Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305 back on 24 November, 1971, he threatened to blow up the Boeing plane if he wasn't given the cold hard cash - worth around $1.54 million (£1.22 million) in 2024 - as well as four parachutes.

FBI

The money was secured and Cooper jumped out of the plane while it was mid-air, using the parachutes to descend safely to the ground.

It's become a story of legend and the focus of countless TV shows and true crime documentaries.

Since 1971, a number of suspects have been identified but no one has ever been prosecuted for the crime.

But following developments, there is now a feeling that the case could finally be solved some 53 years later.

And one amateur detective, Eric Ulis, who has been looking into the case for more than a decade says he is '100% confident' he'll have the hijacker's DNA by the end of 2024.

Watch Ulis' interview with LADbible below:

The FBI officially closed the case back in 2016 after it went cold, meaning no one at the Bureau was investigating Cooper's identity.

But according to one man who used to run the case for the FBI, the case was never really closed by the American security service.

Larry Carr, a retired FBI agent, said it is a 'conceivable possibility' that items left behind at the scene of the crime - including a very famous tie - are being re-investigated once again.

One clue pointing to Cooper's identity is a tie left on the aircraft that the hijacker had been wearing. Bought from US retail chain JCPenney, Ulis believes a metal spindle on the tie could hold sealed DNA evidence likely only belonging to Cooper himself.

Carr retired from the FBI in 2022. Speaking about the case, he told The Sun: "I think it's very much a conceivable possibility.

FBI

"They may be testing everything as a final full-court press.

"If I was still overseeing the case... I'd do one last full-court press and take everything that could possibly contain DNA - the parachute we have, the tie, Cooper's ticket - and just see what we can come up with.

"And if the FBI [laboratories] wouldn't do it, I know there are private labs that have volunteered to do it in the past."

Ulis last year failed in an attempt to sue the FBI over the tie, with the security service possessing the object and unwilling to grant access to it.

LADbible

He said: "There's a very specific part of the tie - a metal spindle that's part of the clip on tie - and I'm determined there may be an uncontaminated profile for DB Cooper within this spindle that's well protected.

"Last month a judge ruled the FBI cannot be compelled to turn over the tie for me to analyse.

"So it's been a matter of some frustration because I think the answers to solving this riddle are right there, in the possession of the FBI."