“Combine getting away with a ton of cash while wearing what is arguably the coolest robbery outfit in the history of mankind, and you’ve set a tempting stage for followers to try and repeat DB Cooper’s feat.”
Thanksgiving travel is always a mess, but passengers flying from Portland, Oregon to Seattle on Thanksgiving Eve 1971 aboard Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305 became part of something really special – and they had no idea what it was until after they landed.
The Legend of DB Cooper is Born
Over the course of a 37-minute flight, the reportedly friendly passenger in seat 18-E, wearing cool shades and a business suit, smoking cigarettes and drinking bourbon, hijacked the plane. The passengers got off as the aircraft took on $200,000 in 20-dollar denominations, along with four parachutes. The plane took off once more on a course for Mexico City. But Cooper never made it to Mexico. He removed his tie and bailed out between Portland, Oregon, and Reno, Nevada.
No trace of Cooper has ever been found in those areas. Combine getting away with a ton of cash while wearing what is arguably the coolest robbery outfit in the history of mankind, and you’ve set the stage for followers to try and repeat this astonishing feat.
The FBI initially believed Cooper couldn’t have survived his now-famous jump because he jumped into a wooded area at night while wearing a suit. But after these five copycats pulled off similar heists, the FBI reevaluated their thinking.
1. Richard Charles LaPoint
It didn’t take long for the Cooper copycats to start in earnest. In January 1972, the first successful hijacking came when Richard Charles LaPoint took over Hughes Airwest Flight 800 DC-9, flying out of Las Vegas McCarran International Airport. Just after the plane departed from its gate, LaPoint hijacked the plane with what he claimed was an explosive device. His ransom was $50,000, two parachutes, and a helmet, and when he got what he wanted, he freed 56 passengers and two flight attendants. The pilot, co-pilot, and a third flight attendant remained.
LaPoint instructed the pilots to set a course for Denver, Colorado. Unlike Cooper, LaPoint did not jump into a dark, tree-filled area in the middle of a storm. He jumped out over the plains of Colorado in the middle of the day. Also, unlike Cooper, he didn’t get away with the crime and landed on a farm seven miles northeast of Akron. The FBI, as well as state and local authorities, converged on the farm, where LaPoint was apprehended.
The bomb he was brandishing aboard the plane was indeed a real bomb, and the hijacker left it on the plane before bailing out. The Denver Police had to defuse the device after the DC-9 landed there two hours later. It turned out that LaPoint was a Vietnam veteran suffering from PTSD, and at his trial, he changed his plea from not guilty to guilty. Neither of these facts impressed the judge in his case, who sentenced the hijacker to 40 years in prison.
2. Richard McCoy Jr.
McCoy’s DB Cooper copycat is probably the best and most closely akin to Cooper’s. He hijacked the plane via a note; the passengers had no idea what was going on and, once airborne, jumped into the darkness and off the FBI’s radar. It happened on April 7, 1972, when Richard McCoy hijacked the plane through a series of notes. He ordered United Airlines Flight 855 from Denver to be diverted to San Francisco, with detailed instructions to follow upon landing. Like Cooper, he demanded four parachutes, but his ransom was $500,000.
Once his meticulous instructions were followed on the ground and the plane was refueled, McCoy released the passengers and one of the flight attendants. Once they were airborne, he again gave specific instructions: fly due east at 200 miles per hour at 16,000 feet. After putting on a jumpsuit, helmet, and parachute, he bailed out somewhere over Provo, Utah. He left behind one of his hand-written notes for the flight crew.
McCoy might have gotten away with it had he not told a friend about his plan. Police learned his name, that he was a Vietnam veteran and member of the Utah Air National Guard who enjoyed skydiving and was in serious debt. The game was up after the FBI found his fingerprints on one of the in-flight magazines. He pleaded not guilty to charges of air piracy but was sentenced to 45 years in prison.
3. Frederick Hahneman
On May 2, 1972, George Ames boarded Eastern Air Lines Flight 175, scheduled to fly from Allentown, Pennsylvania, to Miami, Florida, dressed to the nines. But underneath his polite and friendly veneer was the fact that he was not George Ames; he was Frederick Hahneman, a Honduras-born American and Army veteran – and he smuggled a gun aboard the plane.
Shortly after takeoff, Hahneman hijacked the flight and its 48 passengers. He ordered the plane to land at Dulles International Airport near Washington. He demanded $303,000 in cash, six parachutes, two bush knives, two jumpsuits, two crash helmets, a refuel, some food, and two cartons of Benson & Hedges cigarettes.
Upon receiving his ransom on the ground at Dulles, he kept six members of the flight crew aboard as hostages but allowed the 48 passengers and one flight attendant to leave the plane. After it took off from Dulles, Hahneman decided he was unhappy with the small bills the airline procured, turned around, and landed again to demand higher-denomination notes. After another four hours on the ground, the plane took off, this time headed for Honduras.
The Heist Continues
After switching planes in New Orleans due to a mechanical failure and using the crew as a human shield, the plane finally headed for Honduras. Almost four days after his first takeoff (which was not very Cooper-like), he jumped into the Honduran jungle under the cover of darkness (which was very Cooper-like). The FBI and Honduran government immediately launched a manhunt.
Hahneman might have evaded capture. He moved around rural Honduras for weeks, but a $25,000 reward led to tips to the authorities about his location, forcing him to keep moving. Eventually, he holed up with a friend who convinced him he was too old for it. He surrendered himself to the U.S. Embassy on June 2, 1972. He pleaded guilty and was given a life sentence.
4. Robb Heady
As Hahneman was surrendering in Honduras, another Vietnam veteran and a former paratrooper hijacked United Airlines Flight 239 in Reno using a .357 magnum revolver. Like DB Cooper, Robb Heady demanded $200,000, but unlike Cooper, he brought his own parachute. Flying at night, the hijacker gave the pilots specific heading instructions, but the pilot had other ideas. He adjusted Heady’s dictated flight path by a fraction, which caused Heady to miss his intended drop zone area.
Instead, he fell to Earth near Nevada’s Washoe Lake, where police officers watching a car on the side of the road picked him up just six hours after his jump. The money came out of Heady’s hands when he pulled the ripcord, so he lost the money anyway. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
5. Martin McNally
On June 23, 1972, Martine McNally used a submachine gun hidden in a trombone case to hijack American Airlines flight 119 on its way to Tulsa, Oklahoma. Instead, he sent the plane to St. Louis, where he demanded the bizarrely specific sum of $502,500 and five parachutes. A local, David J. Hanley, got mad at the hostage situation and decided to drive his Cadillac convertible from the nearby Marriott to the tarmac, where he crashed into the jet’s wheel at 80 miles per hour.
McNally just demanded another plane, and when it took off, he directed it to Indiana, where he jumped into a field from 8,000 feet. Authorities found the money and McNally’s gun near Peru, Indiana. Fingerprints they found led them to McNally himself, who was still alive. Also still alive was Hanley, who didn’t remember the accident but decided to run for president in 1976. Jimmy Carter won the election handily.
This list includes the five DB Cooper wannabees who successfully made the jump from aircraft with back stairs that could be descended in-flight. In all, there were more than a dozen DB Cooper copycats, most of them in the year after Cooper’s famed jump. Airlines began using metal detectors and rigging the back stairs so they couldn’t be opened midflight, finally putting an end to the string of money-motivated hijackings.
