Douglas Pasternak

In the following selection Douglas Pasternak, a senior editor for U.S. News & World Report, discusses the 1971 hijacking of Northwest Airlines Flight 305 by Dan "D.B." Cooper. Cooper's successful hijack and daring in—flight escape by parachute with two hundred thousand dollars made him a legendary folk hero who has evaded capture for decades. Since the 1970s the FBI investigated more than one thousand serious suspects, among them numerous people who wanted to take credit for Cooper's crimes. However, as Pasternak describes, in 1995, due to the presence of significant evidence, the FBI opened a serious investigation of a man who claimed to be the notorious bandit just before dying.