Adventure Books of Seattle

BACKGROUND:  The famous 'D.B. Cooper' refers to the man who on November 24, 1971 hijacked a Northwest Airlines Boeing 727 between Portland and Seattle. His identity is still unknown and the case remains unsolved even today. Cooper extorted $200,000 in twenty-dollar bills from the airline, plus four parachutes, which he received when the jet landed in Seattle. Cooper released all the passengers, and two of the three stewardesses on board, and the jet took off again for a refueling stop in Reno, Nevada. However, Cooper opened the rear air-stairs on the jet and jumped out somewhere over southwest Washington state never to be seen again. Nine years later, in 1980, approximately $5,800 of the ransom money was found buried on the banks of the Columbia River by a young boy named Brian Ingram, but the location of the money was far off the flight path and how it got there has never been explained. 

Below is a list of recommended books and the best online resources about the unsolved case. 

Recommended Books at Amazon:

Unsolved Case Files: Escape at 10,000 Feet: D.B. Cooper and the Missing Money by Tom Sullivan (paperback) This one is a children's book with illustrations, but we like it for kids. 

Into The Blast - The True Story of D.B. Cooper by Skipp Porteous and Robert Blevins - Available in paperback and for the Kindle, this book lays out the case against Kenny Peter Christiansen, a former WW2 paratrooper who actually WORKED for Northwest Airlines. To say the book is controversial would be an understatement. Download our investigatory file on Christiansen and company HERE. 

Skyjack - The Hunt for D.B. Cooper - by Geoffrey Gray. The only Cooper book to reach the New York Times bestseller list, Gray's book is by far the most entertaining and sticks closest to the facts. Like 'Into The Blast,' Gray explores the idea of Kenny Christiansen as being Cooper, but does not come to a firm conclusion. However, Gray includes interviews with witnesses, one of them being a stewardess (Florence Schaffner) who saw Cooper during the hijacking. 

Finding D.B. Cooper - Chasing the Last Lead in America's Only Unsolved Hijacking by Martin Andrade Jr and Martin Andrade Sr. Author Andrade explores the possibility that an earlier book by the late Max Gunther may have had some truth in it, and he lays out his two-year investigation in his book. 

D.B. Cooper and Flight 305 by Robert Edwards - Taking a steady and logical look at the case, Robert Edwards tries to analyze the answers to who Cooper may have been, and how he pulled off the only unsolved skyjacking in US history. 

D.B. Cooper at WordPress - More than fifty illustrated articles exist here on the case, written by the AB of Seattle staff. 

Click HERE to view an eight-page preview of the film script on Kenny Christiansen as D.B. Cooper.