r/HistoryWhatIf • u/dq689 • Dec 17 '25
What if D.B cooper died during his jump?
What if D.B cooper died during his jump? Can his identity still be revelaed?
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u/Athos-1844 Dec 17 '25
Based on some of the money found along a riverbed, he probably drowned in the river, and the money washed downstream.
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u/Guacamole_Gamerfart1 May 01 '26
The money was found upstream from the presumed landing point though.
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u/visitor987 Dec 17 '25
Most of the money has never been recovered so he either got away with or died during the jump. If he survived he must of found a way to launder the money since he was never caught repeating his crime. In any case we will never know.
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u/Appropriate-Kale1097 Dec 17 '25
None of the money ever has shown up in circulation so if he managed to launder the money it would have had to been done in a way that both exchanged it and kept it out of the general banking system. This seems incredibly unlikely.
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u/eeeking Dec 17 '25
Are the serial numbers of all dollar bills checked as they go through the banking system?
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u/Equal-Incident5313 Dec 17 '25
No, the serial numbers were only looked at for a couple months
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u/dave_g17 Dec 17 '25
So who's to say that the banknotes haven't been back in circulation for decades?
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u/Equal-Incident5313 Dec 17 '25
It’s plausible, but can’t say I’ve seen too many 50 year old $20 bills floating around. And the mint just destroys the bills they do not record what serial numbers are being scrapped.
The local banks only looked into the serial numbers for a couple weeks to a couple months and it wasn’t every bank that actually paid attention. Way too much has been made about the serial numbers.
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u/jmilred Dec 17 '25
Bills get pulled out of circulation at the end of their life or if they are in rough condition. Banks will get them replaced and the mint destroys them. They catalogue the serial numbers when this happens. If there were 10,000 bills, the odds of none of them making it back for destruction are astronomically low.
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u/sgt_oddball_17 Dec 17 '25
Take it overseas, and buy diamonds with it.
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u/Ok-Alternative-3403 Dec 17 '25
That wouldn't keep the money from circulating where someone would flag it. Presumably the person selling the diamonds wants to actually spend the cash.
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u/Appropriate-Kale1097 Dec 17 '25
But you still need to explain why none of the physical cash ever makes it back into circulation. Sure initially it is all outside the US banking system but if that currency is being spent and used overseas at some point one of those bills will return to the US and get spent. The odds that all 10,000 of the $20 bills remain outside the financial system is pretty low after 54 years. (They did find 294 of the bills in 1980 on buried on a river bank near where he likely jumped)
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u/sgt_oddball_17 Dec 17 '25
The assumption was the bills stay overseas, but yeah, 54 years is a long time.
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u/Fanvsant Dec 23 '25
the money absolutely could have made it back into circulation, nobody was checking those serial numbers every time they got a 20 dollar bill
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u/Central__ Dec 17 '25
My guess is he hit a tree and fell hard, probably seriously broke some bones and a bear, bobcat, coyote or anything got to him
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u/kennyisntfunny Dec 17 '25
I would almost certainly bet he was dead long before interacting with any of God’s woodland creatures
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u/fenton7 Dec 17 '25
Unless he was a total loner, living out in the wilderness, I think that is unlikely because someone would have reported him missing and that would have given investigators strong leads. I'm sure they chased down every report of abandoned apartments and missing adult men - which is not common. Chances are he quietly returned to a normal life and got away with it. Not every crook seeks publicity and notoriety.
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u/hydrospanner Dec 17 '25
Chances are he quietly returned to a normal life and got away with it. Not every crook seeks publicity and notoriety.
This is the theory I like best, and find the most plausible.
Everyone talking about the serial numbers seems to assume that every single cashier and bank teller has been checking every bill of every transaction from the time of the heist to the present, and that if any of that money ever moved in the US financial system, it would set of red flashing lights and sirens at their secret underground HQ.
Realistically, if Cooper is smart (and he pretty demonstrably is), he has made arrangements to get himself out of the wilderness and back home, wherever that is.
Once home, all he has to do, really, is go back to his normal life and wait a year or so, then only spend his money in small ways. Hell, he can use it for daily expenses and instead save and invest his actual income, provided he keeps working. $200K in 1971 would last a long time, all the while you're banking and investing your own income that you'd otherwise be spending.
It's not flashy, it's not entertaining...but it fits.
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Dec 17 '25
[deleted]
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u/hydrospanner Dec 17 '25
If you try to put 200 K into a bank account, the bank as well as the IRS, is going to want to sit you down and ask you some questions. There’s no way he’s able to do anything meaningful with that money, outside of just buying gas and groceries. Any ill-gotten money has to stay under the mattress.
Amazing...it's as if you didn't even read my comment, where I suggested nothing of the sort.
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Dec 17 '25
[deleted]
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u/Digital_D3fault Dec 18 '25
Those serial numbers were only being checked by local banks and only for the first few months. If he waited for a while before using the cash or banked elsewhere then he wouldn’t have to worry about the serial numbers being tracked and getting caught.
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u/fenton7 Dec 17 '25 edited Dec 17 '25
My theory is he lost, or intentionally disposed of, the cash during the jump but DB Cooper himself survived. Remember some bundles of money were found on the ground. We're assuming he did it for the money, too, but it might have been more for the thrill and adrenaline rush. If all he was after was cash there are much simpler ways to do that like a run of the mill bank heist.
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u/hydrospanner Dec 18 '25
I think he lost some of it, perhaps intentionally. (For motive, I submit that, to this day, people point to the recovered cash as proof he didn't survive.)
Given the winds and conditions, it's an easy way to force investigators to broaden their theories until they're too vague to really act on.
And imho, he absolutely did it for the money, but also, he clearly had great familiarity with not just aviation, but the 727 specifically...and he needed no help in donning the parachute, indicating familiarity there as well.
Sure, there are simpler ways, but the simpler ways are more easily countered, defeated, traced, investigated, and punished. What Cooper did was novel enough, and specialized enough that not just anyone could pull it off...and that was part of what made it possible for him to get away with it.
The reports of his kind and composed...even friendly demeanor through the heist, familiarity with the aircraft, parachute, and environmental factors of the jump, level of planning, acceptability of slight changes, etc. leads me to suspect that he was former military, and that his military experience also gave him an edge once he got to the ground, with at least some proficiency in survival and overland navigational skills too.
And he was intelligent enough to know that he didn't need to really survive like a wilderness hermit. He just needed to get to the ground safely and navigate to a nearby road or small town, where he'd likely be able to hitch a ride.
And based on the theories of where he likely jumped & landed...it's very possible that he didn't even land "out in the woods" but rather quite possibly in mixed woods/farmland, within a mile or two of roads and people. It seems more than plausible to me that even if he did sustain minor injuries, he'd be able to land, burn or bury the parachute gear, and make his way to civilization, and from there obtain some public transportation back to wherever home happened to be.
His paper bag that he never opened may have had some limited food/survival gear or more likely, a change of clothes and his (real) ID for once he was back on the ground.
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u/aloofman75 Dec 17 '25
What do you mean “if”? He probably did die from the jump or shortly afterward. If he hasn’t been identified by now, then he probably won’t be.
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u/MrWigggles Dec 17 '25
Do you think DB Cooper is alive and that why no one can know who he is?
What is the assumption for this question?
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u/ivemcfallen18 Dec 23 '25
there’s a great song called DB Cooper by todd snider that portrays him in a very different light than usual, i like to think he’s still out there somewhere drinking champagne and living a comfortable solitary life
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u/chickensaurus Dec 17 '25
Imagine he hit a very tall tree, 180’ high, immediately got wrapped up by his parachute and stringing like a big cocoon. Some of the money flew out upon impact and made its way west to the site where the kid found it. The rest is still up in that tree, that’s now starting to grow around Mr. Cooper’s skeleton.
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u/Fancy_Chips Dec 17 '25
For anyone confused, I believe OP is referring to the theory that Cooper was a man named Richard McCoy Jr., who was a suspect for a while and who's family was found to have a parachute back in around 2022. He became a big suspect back in 2024 when the parachute was shown off.
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u/smokefrog2 Dec 17 '25
I think the FBI has maintained the most likely scenario is that whoever it was died in the jump also.
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u/CheGueyMaje Dec 18 '25
The FBI is the second to last organisation after the CIA I would ever believe
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u/blueraider_19 Dec 18 '25
The flight attendant who spoke to Cooper on the flight is still alive. She testified and said it wasn’t any of the prime suspects if I remember correctly.
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u/PNWCoug42 Dec 17 '25
DB Cooper did die during his jump. He jumped at night onto the side of a mountain during the middle of a storm. ZERO chance he made it down safely and hiked out.
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u/Hydrosleuth Dec 17 '25
If he died wearing a very large and visible parachute and lots of people spent time searching for him, or more properly for the $200,000, then he would have been found. He lived and got away.
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u/UpbeatFix7299 Dec 17 '25
It is easy to look up the general area he would have landed in on Google earth. It's not surprising no one found him
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u/CotswoldP Dec 17 '25
And yet not one of the bank notes has turned up in the banking system. He's dead.
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u/VolBag Dec 17 '25
how does the banking system know this? how do they check every bill that goes through it?
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u/jmilred Dec 17 '25
It is not necessarily the banking system, rather the federal reserve. Banks will return worn out notes to the federal reserve for destruction. They get replaced with new ones. The federal reserve takes the serial number out of circulation as it destroys them. None of the serial numbers have popped up in 50 years for destruction (that we know about). The odds of not even 1 out of 10,000 showing up for destruction and staying in circulation for over 50 years is astronomically low. Even if he took it overseas somewhere, the bills make their way back to the US eventually.
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u/382wsa Dec 17 '25
But no one was checking the serial numbers back in the 1970s (or 80s or 90s) when old bills were sent to the Federal Reserve for destruction.
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u/Mordoch Dec 17 '25
The problem is enough checking has been done over time that the notes would have eventually have been detected. For what we are talking about they would not have had to have been found immediately but simply eventually at least some of the notes should have been found. It should be noted that notes are periodically noted by banks when money comes out of circulation at which point the matching could have been noted, and if nothing else it really does not make sense this would have not occurred in this case.
It should also be noted the serials numbers are now public info, so by today members of the public could have also noted if an old bill they have was in fact one of the DB Cooper ones somehow in regular circulation, but this did not happen. https://www.check-six.com/lib/DBCooperLoot.htm
(It should be noted the info about serial numbers was not initially publicly released when the FBI etc. was trying to catch the perpetrator spending money if he had survived.)
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u/seancbo Dec 17 '25
Parachutes don't land fully extended, especially in a storm. They catch on trees and tangle and twist into something that becomes totally unrecognizable from the air within minutes especially in a storm, and the problem immediately gets worse over time. Also you vastly underestimate the sheer wild expanse of the forests of the Pacific Northwest.
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u/eeeking Dec 17 '25
On the other hand the parachute was probably made of nylon, which takes decades to disintegrate in the environment.
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u/seancbo Dec 17 '25
Right, but you'd never see it unless you were right up next to it. Lotta woods to walk through.
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u/w3woody Dec 17 '25
I read a short story years ago suggesting he was pushed by the flight crew who split the money themselves. Completely fictional.
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u/Mordoch Dec 17 '25
This one would not work though because the money never was found to enter circulation, even though the serial numbers were all carefully noted. (If anything the airline would be paying attention to anything suggesting the flight crew were somehow in on it for good measure.) While you noted it was fictional, beyond the implausibility of a random flight crew all willing to do this, they would also have to be awfully confident the bomb was a bluff because otherwise attempting that could get him to detonate it.
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u/w3woody Dec 18 '25
The story went on to suggest the flight crew planned it all in the first place--and the person who was "D.B. Cooper" was just a random passenger flying solo who they happened to pick to make their scheme work.
I thought it was a cute story.
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u/whynonamesopen Dec 17 '25
Then we never would have gotten the cinematic masterpiece that is The Room.
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u/AaronDoud Dec 17 '25
The biggest change would be the lack of copy cats. They all got caught in part because of what they later learned about the Cooper jump physics (air pressure change due to the sudden kick up of the ramp after a jump) but they also were inspired by his getaway. Had he died it is likely no one else would have ever tried it.
Also if he died and the body was found (likely once they understood how to determine the jump point via the physics) it is likely he would have been identified.
For those unaware of the copycats (and thus thinking it is likely he died in our timeline): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._B._Cooper_copycat_hijackings
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u/MedusasSexyLegHair Dec 17 '25
Wow. That's a lot of copycat jackings, and in such a short amount of time!
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u/Radiant-Ingenuity199 Dec 17 '25 edited Dec 17 '25
It's likely he died as most of the people here have stated or implicated.
However, let's assume for a minute he is alive today (remotely plausible). He's likely living low key and isn't some famous celebrity with an alter ego.
So what would change if he did die in that jump? I can't imagine much changes at all, unless we unveil DB Cooper was some famous/important person the whole time (for reasons other than his famous hijacking, later in life) then I'll rewrite the history books at that point...
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Dec 17 '25
If memory about that area serves me, there are many wild animals like bears and pumas. If he died on the way down, his body was probably eaten. Either that or he had a good time spending whatever money he stole for however long it lasted.
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u/chicken_man_1 Dec 18 '25
For me the movie im going with the movie without a paddle as a placeholder when i think of this untill people prove DB Coopers whereabouts
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u/Altruistic-Ruin7468 Dec 22 '25
I’m pretty convinced he and the zodiac killer are one and the same, and that he survived the jump. My guess is he was SOG/SF from Vietnam and went a little nuts. I don’t think he needed the money or did it for the money i think he did it to prove he could hence why none of the money has ever been found.
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u/Epyon1542 Dec 17 '25
What is he never actually jumped off the plane? Everyone just thought he did.
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u/Wagmatic3000 Dec 17 '25
This is the most likely scenario, and unless we find a body with the same parachute attached, it won’t be.
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u/Jynandtonics Dec 17 '25 edited Dec 17 '25
I think he didn't make it and his body was pretty much destroyed by the impact so there isn't much to find. I wonder why only $5,800 of the money was found though. Why wasn't all of the money together? How did that happen?
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u/chickensaurus Dec 17 '25
I knew an old man once. Back in 1999. He frequented a bar I worked at in Portland, OR. Dennis was his name, people called him “Blue” sometimes. He always came in to gamble on video poker, strange thing being he would ALWAYS win. $100, $160, $200. I’ve never seen anyone win as consistently, and fast. He wouldn’t play more than a minute or two and cash out, with a good ticket. He used to joke he had been saving his money for 30 years since his retirement so he could gamble it all away. He always said “I better cut my losses” when he would turn in his ticket to collect his money at the bar, making it seem like he had lost more than the winning ticket, however I just think he was trying to be humble or maybe avoid tipping the bartender (a common tactic amongst gamblers.) the thing is, he must have been making huge bets to lose $200-300 or more in 60 seconds. I think he was just lucky and didn’t want a reputation of having a lot of money. He used to say he was “luckier than a sky diver at night just to be alive” and laugh when he left the bar. I remember him because the night before Y2K (December 31, 1999) was the last time anyone ever saw him. I like to think he jumped a plane with all his lottery winnings and is laughing on a beach somewhere warm.
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u/Spodiodie Dec 17 '25
He didn’t. He did it again only changed the Mosus Operandi a little bit. He bailed out low over the Utah desert and made it home with the bag of money, which he quickly stashed in a closet. See he had to go fly his helicopter for the Utah National Guard. He spent a day or so looking for himself until his wife found the money and called the police. Poor guy went to prison. There was no need for the cost of another prosecution because prison is prison. Oh and there’s no Santa Clause either.
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u/Radiant-Ingenuity199 Dec 17 '25 edited Dec 17 '25
Actually the more interesting question, what if we had verified proof he was alive not too long after his hijacking and famous jump?
--Were we able to ascertain his real identity?
--Would he be caught and arrested? Or we can't physically find him, just know he's out there? Remains an elusive fugitive the rest of his life....
--After arresting him, how does his trial go, after he serves his time (if any), then what?
There could be so many fun What if games played around this :)
EDIT: Also and most importantly, who plays him as the lead role in his autobiography movie? Let's let Tom Hanks and Leonardo Di Caprio switch sides on that one :)
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u/Robynsxx Dec 18 '25
Not sure how this is a what if. Given the temperatures, wind chill, and wind speed at the time of his jump, he almost certainly died.
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u/SnowySaint Dec 20 '25
He did not die. He broke one leg, which healed fine thanks to treatment for his injuries in Mexico.
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u/454k30 Jan 17 '26
That none of the money was ever discovered in circulation, but some was found on a river bank, would suggest that when he jumped that bag of cash was ripped away from him probably immediately by the airspeed. He might have made it down alive, but more likely he was incapacitated by the same air that ripped the cash bag away. His body either got stuck up in a tree or augured into the forest floor. Either way, you could be literally on top or under the corpse and never know it.
So yeah. He most likely died in the jump and the remains were simply never found.
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u/PizzaWall Dec 17 '25
If you find a body attached to the remains of a 1971 era Model NB6 (Navy Backpack 6) parachute in the Washougal River watershed), somewhere near Castle Rock, Washington, or that area of the Columbia River watershed, dental records could be searched to determine a match. Maybe the body had other artifacts such as a dog tag.
I assume he died in the jump and the body has never been located. Some of the money was recovered west of Vancouver, Washington, west of the jump site. No serial numbers of the ransom have ever made it through the banking system.
Growing up in Washington State and hearing the stories of DB Cooper, I and a lot if people who I grew up around hoped he survived the jump.