D.B. Cooper Might Be Dead, But Folk Legend Will Live On

SEATTLE, WA — The man who many people believe is the hijacker D.B. Cooper has died — but no doubt, the mystery of Cooper's 1971 jetliner hijacking will live on in the Pacific Northwest for years to come.

Robert Rackstraw, 75, died on Tuesday at his condominium in San Diego. The FBI gave up investigating the Cooper hijacking in 2016, but the miniseries D.B. Cooper: Case Closed?" pointed to Rackstraw as the hijacker.

"I told everybody I was (the hijacker)," Rackstraw said, according to San Diego The Union-Tribune, before explaining that his admission was a stunt.

On Nov. 24, 1971, Cooper hijacked a flight headed to Seattle from Portland. He reportedly jumped from the plane over Washington with $200,000 in cash. The hijacker was never found and it was not clear whether he survived.

The case was one of the longest and most exhaustive investigations in FBI history.

If D.B. Cooper had invested the $200,000 he skyjacked eight years ago in Oriental rugs, apartment houses or Charles Russell paintings, he’d be a millionaire, Nov. 24, 1979. Maybe he is no trace has been found of Cooper who hijacked a Northwest Airlines jet on Nov. 24, 1971 over southwestern Washington. (AP Photo)

Part of the money that was paid to legendary hijacker D.B. Cooper in 1971 is shown during an F.B.I. news conference, Feb. 12, 1980, where it was announced that several thousand dollars was found 5 miles northwest of Vancouver, Wash., by Howard and Patricia Ingram and their 8-year-old son Brian on Feb. 10. The couple's son found the money while on a family picnic. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

A hijacked Northwest Airlines jetliner 727 sits on a runway for refueling at Sea-Tact International Airport, Nov. 25, 1971. (AP Photo)

In this undated file photo, a helicopter takes off from search headquarters to scour the area where hijacker Dan Cooper might have parachuted into in Woodland, Wash. The past has been a rich year for students of D.B. Cooper, the mysterious skyjacker who vanished out the back of a Boeing 727 wearing a business suit, a parachute and a pack with $200,000 in ransom money 40 years ago, Thursday, Nov. 24, 2011. (AP Photo, File)

Patch Editor Kristina Houck contributed to this story