M a s h a r I b o V a z I z b e k, m a r I m o V o d I l b e k

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M A S H A R I B O V   A Z I Z B E K ,   M A R I M O V   O D I L B E K 

M A S H A R I B O V   A Z I Z B E K ,   M A R I M O V   O D I L B E K 

  M A Y   2 0 2 1

  M A Y   2 0 2 1

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The Newsletter, June 2018

“35-years-long investigation”

“35-years-long investigation”

“W

ho was Dan B. Cooper and how was the most mysterious crime 

in the history done?”

Afternoon, November 24, 1971, middle aged man with 

a briefcase entering the portland airport with a 1 way 

ticket.

In the ticket, he was identified as Dan Cooper, and the 

ticket also suggested that the flight was northwest 

airlines’ flight 305,

He slowly entered the plane and ordered a drink and 

cigarette, just because it was the 70s.

He took the last row seat, near the flight attendant 

Florence Schaffner. Florence was the lowest-tier new-

est worker amongst the crew.

After the plane was on air and a few minutes of dead 

silence, an envelope was passed to Florence and it was 

from Cooper. Inside the envelope, there was a note, 

stating “I have a bomb so you’d better sit next to me”

Florence sat and saw 8 sticks of dynamite in the 

briefcase.

5:45 P.M, more than 2 hours later than its scheduled 

arrival, 305 finally touched down the remote section 

of the tarmac

Once the plane stopped, all the ransom and para-

chutes were handed over to Mucklow

and brought back abroad. In exchange, Cooper al-

lowed 2 flight attendants and all the passengers to 

go. Many of the passengers didn’t even realize they 

were being held as hostages.

After leaving all the hostages, with only 4 crew 

members, Cooper wanted to fly to Mexico City.

Cooper was pretty strict about how they should be 

flying: landing gear down, the flaps at 15 degrees 

and below 10 000 feet (~3048 m).

Authorities were quickly informed and Cooper was 

aware of that. So Cooper sent them a “message”, in-

forming them about his demands. 

The demands were simple: 200k $ and 4 parachutes, 

a fuel truck to refuel in land. He also quoted: “No fun-

ny stuff, or I’ll do the job”

Once the plane was airborne, Florence went to in-

form the cockpit crew while

the second flight attendant, Tina Mucklow, remained 

by the Cooper’s side with a telephone, connected to 

the cockpit cabin

For 1.5 hours, the plane had held a patterned path 

near Seattle while the authorities collected the ran-

som and the parachutes.

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As soon as it was clear that cooper was not 

in the plane, dozens of FBI agents rushed 

into the board, only to discover that disap-

pointing amount of physical evidence was 

present. What they found were just a black 

clip on a tie,  and 8 butts of cigarette, which 

was lost at some point of the FBI investiga-

tion, and 2 of the 4 parachutes Cooper left 

behind. It was really smart of Cooper to or-

der 4 parachutes, so the authorities would 

think that he is taking a hostage with him 

and they’d be more careful. Cooper was de-

scribed as a white and/or caucasian man 

with dark brown eyes and dark hair, in his 

mid 40s.

He also did wear a dark trench coat, a dark 

suit, a white shirt, black tie, dark shoes and a 

pair of sunglasses to cover his identity. 

FBI presented a lot of sketches based on 

these descriptions, but more importantly, 

they had to figure out when Cooper jumped 

out of the plane. 

All of the cabin lights should be switched off, and 

the aft stairway in the underbelly of the plane was 

to be extended during the flight. But his demands 

were not realistic.

Firstly, he did need a refuel station in order to fly to 

Mexico city without running out of fuel. Cooper sug-

gested stopping and refueling in Phoenix, Yuma or 

Sacramento. But both sides agreed in Reno, Neva-

da. And second of all, it was not possible to depart 

with the staircase extended, so Cooper agreed to 

retract the stairs, but with one condition: Mucklow 

would open it again once they were airborne. After 

being parked for nearly 2 hours and being refueled, 

flight 305 was back in air by 7:36 P.M

Within the 5 minutes of the takeoff, Cooper told 

Mucklow to go to the cockpit and lock the doors.

He didn’t want to be disturbed. Last time she saw 

Cooper, he was “preparing”, as if though he was

getting himself ready to jump. And Mucklow did so, 

and from that point onward, all they wanted was 

safely landing in Reno. Surprisingly, without any-

thing bad happening, they landed in the Reno Air-

port. But once the flight came to a stop, crew care-

fully got out of the cockpit cabin and there was no 

sign of Cooper, nor the bomb. The Aft Stairway had 

been extended mid-flight and was slightly dam-

aged upon landing. There was only one explanation: 

Cooper had strapped on a parachute, opened and 

walked down the stairs, and vanished in the dark of 

night.

35-Years-Long Investigation

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4

The Newsletter, June 2018

Well, after unsuccessful operations, the FBI wanted 

to “chase the money”. The Seattle bank had already 

registered the serial numbers of the 10000 20$ bills, 

so the only thing left was searching for the money.

They searched for a long time, even offering a large 

amount of rewards. But unfortunately they could 

not find... for a decade. Almost a decade later, in ear-

ly 1980, February 10, a young lad called Brian Ingram 

was building a campfire. As he is digging on the 

sand, he found 3 bundles of cash, totalling 5880$. 

The parents were aware of the infamous hijacking, 

so they brought the degraded money to the FBI. 

But it was unreal, because it was in Tina Bar, a small 

beach of the California river, nearly 30 km away from 

the estimated dropzone.

It was not easy, because it was a 

dark night and nobody from the 

crew saw the cooper jumping, nor 

the 2 fighter jets, which chased 

the hijacked Boeing on its way to 

Reno. The last contact between 

Cooper and the crew was in 8:05 

P.M, when the crew offered help 

to open the staircase for him, 

which Cooper declined. Within 

the next 10 minutes, they experi-

enced a shake of the plan, prob-

ably caused by Cooper’s jump. 

Well, we answered the “when”, 

but what about the “wher e”? 

Cooper was really strict about the

configuration of the flight, but ap-

parently he was sort of careless 

about the path that flight took 

to get to Reno. When the pilots 

asked him about the path, he sim-

ply quoted: “Let’s get the show on 

the road.”

So the captain decided to fly 

along the airway named Victor 

23, without any input from Coo-

per. And using this information, 

authorities estimated the most 

probable time and the location of 

the jump. As they discover, it was 

40 kilometers North of Portland, 

which later was investigated with 

a bunch of helicopters and search 

operations. But it still was difficult 

to pinpoint, because the terrain of 

that area was full of mountains, 

wild animals and cold and dense 

forests with freezing snow every-

where. It was more difficult than 

finding a needle in a haystack.

Despite spending a tremendously 

large amount of money on the

search operations, authorities 

could not find the remains of the 

Cooper, nor the items they had 

given to him.

35-Years-Long Investigation

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The FBI had only 5 major sus-

pects and dozens of minor sus-

pects who were just fans and 

copycats of the real Cooper, 

but they had very little infor-

mation and evidence to work 

with them. So they closed the 

case in 2016, assuming Cooper 

was dead. That’s the story of 

Dan Cooper, and there’s still 

no sign of Cooper, nor the 

rest of the money.

And another really interesting 

thing to point out is, the  rubber 

bands of the money were still 

intact. It was peculiar, because 

the experiments conducted 

in 2009 showed this brand of 

rubber bands could not be 

exposed to the air or water, 

for more than a year. So Coo-

per (or anyone who stumbled 

upon the Cooper’s remains) did 

not keep the money with him, 

more than a year and buried it 

in Tina Bar. 

35-Years-Long Investigation