(D.B. Cooper pink parachute courtesy Washington State History Museum)

The only unsolved commercial airline hijacking in the U.S. remains the November 24, 1971 hijacking of Northwest Orient flight 305 to Seattle by someone who has come to be known as “D.B.” Cooper.

(Sketch courtesy FBI)

In 1971, Cooper boarded a Boeing 727 on Thanksgiving eve, November 24, that was heading from Portland, Oregon to Seattle.

During the flight, he passed a flight attendant a note saying that he had a bomb and would blow up the plane unless he was given $200,000 in $20 bills and some parachutes.

His demands were met and he parachuted out of the plane, with the money, somewhere over southwest Washington State.

In 1980 some of the money was found along the banks of a river. But Cooper remains at large.

And the mystery lingers on.

Cooper’s hijacking demands included four parachutes. He got them but didn’t choose the pink nylon reserve parachute that the Washington State History Museum in Tacoma, WA is displaying this fall.

The parachute was part of the evidence the FBI recovered for its hijacking investigation and has since been given to the museum for safekeeping and occasional display.

You can see this parachute and contemplate what you think happened to Cooper and the money from September 22 through November 16, 2014.

If you can, come by the museum on November 14 for the History After Hours program.

I’ll be there for a presentation about some of the weird and wonderful objects, like the D.B. Cooper parachute, that museums rarely or never display.

Here’s a short video about D.B. Cooper from Seattle’s public TV station.