Madison Meeks 

Editor-in-Chief

mvm7037@psu.edu

According to People Magazine, investigators might be one step closer to solving the D.B. Cooper plane hijacking case after discovering new evidence. Star of History’s ‘Greatest Mysteries’ Eric Ulis had recently shared with Fox News that a piece of metal fragment that could not be seen to the naked eye as it was microscopic was on Cooper’s tie. This discovery has led him to a theory on who the culprit could be.

D.B. Cooper is known for hijacking and threatening to blow up a commercial plane that had been traveling from Portland, Oregon, to Seattle, Washington, in 1971. After threatening to blow up the plane, he leaped off the plane, never to be seen again, and took 200,000 dollars as ransom with him. His identity has never been able to be traced.

Investigators have been trying to identify him by using a clip-on tie that he left on his seat on the plane. According to an interview that Ulis had with Fox News, scientists have applied sticky stubs to the tie and have pulled more than 100,000 particles from the item of clothing. According to People Magazine, the tie was most likely purchased at a J.C. Penny during the 1964 Christmas season.

Scientists are using the most recent technology, which they did not have during the 1970s when the plane hijacking took place, to possibly identify the suspect, who has been a mystery for decades.

Ulis was able to trace three of the fragments found on the tie. The fragments were made up of stainless steel and titanium. These materials had led him to a plant in Pennsylvania called Crucible Steel. According to People Magazine, the company was described as a significant subcontractor all throughout the 1960s. The company had apparently supplied the titanium and steel for Boeing’s aircraft.

According to the interview that Ulis had with Fox News, Cooper would have had knowledge of the Boeing 727 aircraft that he had hijacked if he had been working at the plant in 1971. It has also been stated that Boeing had a downfall in 1971, which was the year of the hijacking. Ulis believes that the discovery makes him think that the company’s titanium research engineer, Vince Peterson, is D.B. Cooper.

Though he is not crossing any suspects off the list because he cannot fully suspect Peterson due to a lack of sufficient evidence, The identity of D.B. Cooper, famous for the Boeing 727 hijacking, still remains a mystery all these decades later.