In a scene from the first episode of the acclaimed Disney+ series Loki (keep calm, there are no spoilers), the charismatic Norse god of deception played by Tom Hiddleston is on a plane smartly attired in a black suit, white shirt, black tie, sunglasses. Calmly, he gives a brief note to the purser who has just attended him. The woman, believing that the handsome gentleman had given her his number, leaves with a shy smile, but Loki stops her and urges her to read the message. It lists a series of instructions that the purser must deliver to the pilot if she wants to prevent Loki from blowing up the plane with a bomb hidden in a briefcase he is carrying.
This is one more of the many references in popular culture to one of the most mysterious cases of air navigation, so much so that it remains unsolved so far. In this episode, Loki emulates D. B. Cooper (or Dan Cooper according to the name on his boarding ticket), the pseudonym of the skyjacker of a Boeing 727-100 of the Northwest Orient company on November 24, 1971 (flight 305). In exchange for releasing the plane and its passengers unharmed, the mysterious stranger asked for $200,000 and two sets of parachutes. For what?
After letting the aircraft land in Seattle for refueling, releasing the passengers and most of the crew and carrying out his extortion, the plane returned to the skies. While flying over a cloudy area, Cooper opened the plane’s tailgate and parachuted out with the money and the briefcase. He would have landed somewhere in southwestern Washington State. Where exactly? To this day it is unknown.
Neither his fate nor his true identity are known. The most plausible hypothesis for the FBI for a long time was that Cooper did not survive the jump, because for years neither the parachutes, nor the briefcase, nor the money were found… Until 9 years later Brian Ingram found in the Columbia River $5880 in bills whose serial number matched with those given to the skyjacker. From then on, his trail vanished again.
Despite having investigated more than 800 potential suspects, the FBI still does not have conclusive evidence. In 2016, the investigation was dropped. D. B. Cooper could very well be the reincarnation of the god of deception.
