Maybe you have n’t heard , but the FBI is taking a lot of shit today over a sealed memoranda . ( It ’s been in the news a little . ) But it turn out House Republicans are n’t the only ones who have a off-white to pick with America ’s top lawdogs .
At a imperativeness league outside the FBI ’s main office on Thursday , a team of independent researchers openly accused the bureau of address up evidence in the D.B. Cooper case . The identity of the infamous criminal , who skyjack a Boeing 727 in 1971 , remains unknown , and the researchers claim the FBI actually prefers it that way .
TheNew York Daily Newsreports that Tom Colbert , a documentary filmmaker who take the researcher , accuse the Federal Bureau of Investigation of covering up for the skyjacker , who boarded Northwest Orient Flight 305 on November 24 , 1971 , under the alias Dan Cooper .
Wearing a couplet of dark shades and take he had a bomb , Cooper force the 727 to land at Seattle - Tacoma Airport where he released three dozen surety in exchange for $ 200,000 ( around $ 1.2 million in 2018 dollars ) .
After refueling , the planer assume off again with four of the flight ’s crowd , but about 20 minutes later , Cooper forced everyone into the cockpit and activated the aft door . When the carpenter’s plane finally landed in Nevada two hours later , Cooper was snuff it .
Colbert and his team have finger Robert W. Rackstraw , a retired Army para , as the culprit , and they are n’t the first . Rockstraw first do to the attention of authorities in 1978 . He resembled composite sketches , had a criminal track record , and due to his Army grooming was capable of making the startle .
Ultimately , however , no direct grounds was base unite Rackstraw to the criminal offence , and the FBI moved on .
Over the preceding few years , Colbert ’s squad has produce several missive supposedly sent by the master criminal to newspapers in 1971 . They say they decode several codes in the letter of the alphabet , which allegedly maneuver to Rackstraw ’s initials , the Army ’s Special Warfare School ( where he studied ) , and another of his military units .
The letter patently tease both the FBI and the CIA and recommend authority to endeavor to catch him .
During a 2016 lawsuit to adopt the FBI investigation file , Colbert said his team had accumulated more than 100 pieces of grounds pointing to Rackstraw , who became that twelvemonth the subject area of a two - part History Channel series based on the work . ( you could peruse what the FBI has releasedhere . )
Colbert has long accused the FBI of push aside any young evidence . Had the FBI actually get Cooper 40 twelvemonth ago , but erroneously released him , it would certainly be yet another embarrassing chapter in the bureau ’s history .
“ It ’s more than a bunch of erstwhile Guy chasing another old guy over forgotten history . This is about current FBI federal agent stonewalling , pass over up , and directly - out lying for mentors and gee - men long go , over decade — all because of an unholy deal to enshroud and protect a valuable CIA Black Ops pilot make love as D.B. Cooper , ” Colbert reportedly told the Daily News in an electronic mail .
Fun fact : The hijacker never actually referred to himself as D.B. The moniker originates with a error made by a local newsman who blur the hijacker ’s pseudonym with the name of an early suspect in Oregon .
That is to say , it is fake news .
[ New York Daily News ]
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