82: D.B. Cooper’s Infamous Hijacking (Part 1)

An Old Timey Podcast

True Crime, History, Comedy

4.9 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 3 December 2025

⏱️ 88 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This episode kicks off our coverage of the only unsolved airplane hijacking in United States history.

On November 24, 1971, a nondescript man boarded a flight to Seattle. He wore a dark suit. He carried a briefcase. As the plane took off, he told the flight attendants that he had a bomb. He demanded $200,000 in ransom money, plus four parachutes.

The airline, along with federal agents, scrambled to meet his demands. When the plane landed in Seattle, he allowed the passengers to leave. Then the man – who would later be known as D.B. Cooper – instructed the crew to fly him to Mexico. His instructions revealed a high level of knowledge about the Boeing 727 jet. And then? He did the unthinkable. He parachuted out of the plane with the ransom money in tow, never to be heard from again.

Remember, kids, history hoes always cite their sources! For this episode, Kristin pulled from:
The book, “Skyjack: The Hunt for D.B. Cooper,” by Geoffrey Gray
The documentary, “DB Cooper: Where are you?!”
The documentary, “The Mystery of DB Cooper”
“Who was the mysterious hijacker D.B. Cooper?” by Ella Morton for History.com
“D.B. Cooper Hijacking, FBI.gov
“The missing piece of the D.B. Cooper story,” by Andrea Marks for Rolling Stone

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hear ye, hear ye.
0:03.4	You are listening to an old-timey podcast.
0:06.7	I'm Kristen Caruso.
0:08.2	And I'm Norman Caruso.
0:09.6	And on this episode, I'll be talking about D.B. Cooper.
0:14.0	Down Bad Cooper.
0:15.8	Oh, well, that's kind of cute.
0:17.6	But no, this is a serious story about hijacking.
0:20.6	Okay, I know this story. Oh yeah? Do you?
0:23.5	Yeah. You think you know it? Well, not on the level that you probably know it. But I have always been
0:29.9	fascinated by this story. I know the basics, I guess. Okay. Okay. Well, prepare yourself, but you know what?
0:35.5	I hear you trying to usher me right along into my story,
0:38.9	but I have some insider knowledge, and the insider knowledge is that you have a mistakes of shame
0:44.6	to confess. Do I? Norm, what terrible thing did you do? Well, let me tell you, Kristen,
0:51.4	mistakes. Mistakes. Of shame!
1:02.2	Kristen, in our last episode, I talked about a very, very spiteful man named Joseph Richardson.
1:03.2	Yes.
1:09.5	I also talked about his family, about how his daughter lived in a prison-like house located at 110 East Houston Street in New York City.
1:14.8	I was informed by many New York history hosts that I am pronouncing the name of that
1:20.9	street incorrectly, although it is spelled H-O-U-S-T-O-N, much like the city in Texas.
1:29.1	Uh-huh.
1:29.7	It's actually pronounced Houston.
	...

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