It was Thanksgiving Eve 1971 when a hijacker named D B Cooper parachuted out of the trail door of a North-West Airlines 727. Storyville: The Hijacker Who Vanished: The Mystery of D B Cooper, contemporary news report, BBC 2020
In November 1971 a man who became known as D B Cooper hijacked a plane flying out of Portland, Oregon. After demanding a $200,000 ransom, D B Cooper parachuted out of the hijacked 727 at 10,000 feet over Washington State. The case is still the only unsolved act of air piracy in American history. ibid. captions
Handed me this note, and it said, Miss, you’re being hijacked, I’ve got a bomb, come sit next to me. He opened the briefcase and showed me … He wasn’t going to be taken alive … On a 727 there’s nowhere to run. ibid. stewardess’ testimony
Northwest Orient Flight 305 departs Portland 2:50pm on a 37-minute flight to Seattle. ibid. caption
Four parachutes: that was our concern – that he wanted us to bail with him. ibid. pilot
With the money onboard D B Cooper demands the plane fly to Mexico City. It departs at 7:36 via planned stop to refuel at Reno, Nevada. ibid. caption
How arbitrary is was! Why had some people been destroyed while others had escaped with just a black eye? Storyville: Stranded! The Andes Plane Crash Survivors, BBC 2022
Until we hit a big air pocket, what fun! ibid.
So the older ones took charge of distribution. ibid.
If by December 24th Christmas Eve they hadn’t appeared, I was going to let myself die. ibid.
It’s a mystery that’s confounded law enforcement for 48 years. On November 24th 1971 a man who would become known as D B Cooper hijacks a plane and then jumps out, taking with him a ransom of $200,000. History’s Greatest Mysteries with Laurence Fishburne s1e3: The Final Hunt for D B Cooper, Eric Ulis reporting, History 2021
He gave the name Dan Cooper to the ticket agent. He would end up taking a seat in the very back row of the jet – 18E to be exact. The flight attendants recalled D B Cooper being a guy who was in his mid-forties dressed as a business person wearing a back suit, wearing loafers with a skinny black suit and a raincoat. And he would later put on a pair of dark sunglasses as the jet was about to take off. ibid.
There was no possibility that the money just washed ashore. The bundles of twenties were found just below the surface of the sand neatly stacked upon each other with the rubber bands still intact. ibid.
The FBI investigated more than a thousand suspects. ibid.
Eric believes this man could be D B Cooper – his name is Sheridan Peterson … Sheridan was 45 at the time of the skyjacking, and Eric believes his appearance is similar to the original sketch of D B Cooper. Sheridan lived in Seattle prior to the skyjacking, and was photographed in a suit and tie while posing as a skydiver. As a Boeing employee it’s also likely that Sheridan knew the inner workings of the 727. And finally, Eric does not believe Sheridan’s alibi can be corroborated at the time of the skyjacking. ibid.
One of the most chilling aviation mysteries in modern day. 239 people vanish over the Indian ocean without a trace … What really happened to Malaysia Flight MH370? History’s Greatest Mysteries s3e7: Malaysia Flight 370, History 2022
March 8th 2014: Just 38 minutes into the flight Malaysia MH370 simply disappears from radar. ibid.
There is no substantial evidence to tie the pilot or crew members to any wrongdoing. ibid.
One of the worst aviation disasters in American history. 230 killed when a jetliner explodes off the coast of Long Island. History’s Greatest Mysteries s4e21: TWA Flight 800, History 2024
July 17th 1976: TWA 800 takes off into mostly clear skies … Just 12 minutes after take-off Flight 800 disappears from radar. ibid.
‘Something has exploded and the debris just rained down into the water [Long Island Sound].’ ibid. astrophysicist
What happened to TWA Flight 800? ibid.
Powered flight was just eleven years old when the First World War began. But a dedicated group of men transformed the airplane into one of the most important weapons in helping to win that war. Timewatch: WWI Aces Falling, BBC 2009
The top British aces were two little known working class heroes: Edward Mannock and James McCudden. And they were called knights of the sky. ibid.
Shockingly dangerous profession. Of the 14,000 British pilots killed in World War I, over 8,000 died while training. ibid.
But it was the Germans who first adopted an ingenious device that synchronised the machine guns so they could fire between the blade of the propeller. ibid.
The life expectancy of a new pilot in 1917 was just eleven days. ibid.
Aircraft were now being used to support the troops … They were even more vulnerable to attack from the ground. ibid.
And the first of those aces to be brought crashing to the earth was the now infamous German pilot Manfred von Richthofen. ibid.
Major J T Byford McCudden VC DSO and Bar, MC and Bar MM – at the time of his death he was just twenty-three years old. ibid.
It’s the worst single aircraft disaster in aviation history. A Boeing crashes into the mountain north-west of Tokyo. 520 passengers and crew perish in a pile of twisted metal. Seconds from Disaster: Terrified Over Tokyo, National Geographic 2012
Planes dropping from the sky: is top-secret military testing to blame? … This is the Nevada Triangle, covering 25,000 square miles of mountains and desert. It claimed over 2,000 aircraft in the last 60 years. Conspiracies Decoded s1e6
It was a mystery that captivated the world. In March 2014 Flight MH370 suddenly disappeared. Lost without warning. Without trace. 239 passengers from 14 different countries. Flight MH370 I: The Vanishing, Channel 5 2022
It takes an hour for Air Traffic Control to tell Malaysia Airlines that MH370 is missing. ibid.
It was revealed that two Iranians boarded the flight with fake passports. ibid. journalist
7 days after MH370 disappeared, Malaysian authorities confirm the plane continued to fly for almost 6 hours. ibid.
16 Days after MH370 disappeared the Malaysian government announces where they now think the plane crashed. ibid.
If the pilots were in control of this plane, what the hell were they up to? Flight MH370 II: The Silence, woman
Six months after MH370 disappeared an advanced underwater search begins. ibid. caption
In June 2016 more debris, likely from MH370 is discovered. ibid.
Did the captain play a role in the hijack and murder of innocent people? Flight MH370 III: Murder at 30,000 feet? Jim Terimini, aviation expert
Since the earliest days of flight Britain has designed and built some of the world’s most iconic aircraft. During decades of conflict the planes that Britain built helped build our nation. Rob Bell, British Planes that Won the War I: Sopwith Camel, Channel 5 2022
The story of World War I’s most deadly fighter plane: the Sopwith Camel. It revolutionised aerial combat. And inspired tremendous acts of bravery. ibid.
It’s the plane that changed the course of history and still reigns supreme. Rob Bell, British Planes that Won the War II: Spitfire
A streamlined fighter and an all-aluminium fuselage, enclosed cockpit and retractable landing gear. ibid.
As German bombers roared overhead Britain seemed powerless to hit back. But in the nick of time British engineers developed a brand new aircraft, more powerful than anything Hitler possessed: the Lancaster Bomber, the most fearsome weapon of war that Britain had ever unleashed. Rob Bell, British Planes that Won the war III: Lancaster Bomber
A vast bomb bay: 33 feet long, capable of carrying twice the load of existing bombers. ibid.
The factories churned out more than 7,000 aircraft. ibid.
The game-changing British innovation that reinvented the modern jet fighter. It helped prevent the Cold War from turning hot. Rob Bell, British Planes that Won the War, Channel 5 2022
Race from London GPO Tower to New York Empire State Building: 6 hours, 11 minutes 57 seconds – Harrier Jump Jet. ibid.
Falklands War: Not a single Harrier was lost to enemy aircraft. ibid.
On 30th June 1953, less than a month after her coronation, Queen Elizabeth walked across the tarmac at London airport. The Queen was there to wave her mother and sister off but also to catch a glimpse of a very exciting new British aeroplane. The De Havilland Comet represented the future, the world’s very first commercial jet airliner … But within a year of the royal flight a series of terrible crashes would ground the Comet fleet and devastate Britain’s lead in the jet age. New Elizabethans with Andrew Marr III, BBC 2020
A multinational search operation scans almost three million square miles of ocean but three weeks after MH370 disappears, the plane has still not been found. Mysteries of the Missing s1e1: Hunt for Flight MH370, Discovery 2023
Investigators have discovered that the aircraft deviated from its flight path to Beijing, flew north west and then disappeared. But they don’t understand why. ibid.
Was this a 9/11-style terror attack? ibid.