D.B. Cooper's Last Interview
Season 13, Episode 11
November 17, 2025
A factual documentary with a fictional ending.
Re-Imagined Radio presents "D.B. Cooper's Last Interview," a factual documentary with a fictional ending about man known as D.B. Cooper who hijacks a passenger airplane Thanksgiving Eve, 1971, and then parachutes over southwest Washington state carrying $200,000 in ransom money. Never apprehended, presumed dead, Cooper remains legendary. We adapt Tom Vandel's original story, "The Last Interview," to bring closure without disrupting the power of this true but unsolved mystery. From our Guest Writer series.
Access the episode script
Background
Washington state is noted for it's wild beaches, rugged mountains, and dense forests. Perfect settings for mysteries.
The mystery surrounding D.B. Cooper enjoys legendary status in the southwest corner of Washington. His story began here more than a half-century earlier.
1971. Thanksgiving eve. November 24. A passenger hijacks Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305 en route from Portland, Oregon, to Seattle, Washington, by convincing the flight crew he has a bomb in his briefcase.
The name on the passenger's ticket reads "Dan Cooper" in all capital letters. No initials.
Some Cooper-sleuths think the name "Dan Cooper" is an alias, perhaps borrowed from a comic created by Belgium artist Albert Weinberg, in the 1950s. In Weinberg's comics, Dan Cooper is a military combat pilot who flies fighter jets and test planes for the Royal Canadian Air Force. His dangerous missions frequently end with him parachuting to safety. (Gray, Geoffrey. Skyjack: The Hunt for D.B. Cooper. Crown Publishers, 2011, pp. 207-208.)
In Seattle, Cooper ransoms the passengers and some crew members for $200,000 and four parachutes, two front and two back. All delivered to him aboard Northwest Orient Flight 305. Cooper cuts apart one front parachute to make a belt in which to carry the ransom money. He leaves one back parachute aboard the aircraft, a newer, more steerable model. He jumps with an older military model back parachute. The front parachute is sewn shut, a "dummy." Some investigators say these choices indicate that Cooper was not an experienced parachutist.
Cooper instructs the pilots to fly him to Mexico. Somewhere over southwest Washington, he jumps from the rear staircase of the airplane, into history, mystery, and legend. Flight 305 continues on, to Reno, Nevada.
FBI agents in Reno swarm Flight 305 after it lands in Reno. They find eight Raleigh filter-tip cigarette butts at Seat 18E, Cooper's seat. These butts are sent to FBI labs in Las Vegas, but disappear. No one knows what happened to them. Some say it points to FBI mishandling the case.
Early news reports mistakenly identify the hijacker as "D.B. Cooper" and so he has been called ever since.
D.B. Cooper has never been identified, or captured. His hijacking is the only unsolved case of passenger air piracy in American history. His exploit is told in songs, movies, books, endless speculation, and previously by Re-Imagined Radio as a three-part saga written and directed by Dan Wyatt, Jr.
D.B. Cooper has eluded identification and capture for more than a half-century. With this episode, Re-Imagined Radio revisits the Cooper legend as a factual documentary with a fictional ending in hopes of providing some closure for those listeners who have followed this story for years, and engagement for those just now joining the ranks.
Factual documentary
In the first half of this episode we document D.B. Cooper's hijacking of Flight 305. We include several actualities (often called "sound bites"), short, recorded segments featuring the voices of people involved in or knowledgeable about the story.
Fictional ending
The second half of our episode samples Tom Vandel's original print story, "The Last Interview" (first published in A Broken World. Tiny Road Books, 2021, used here by permission) to provide some closure, fictional yes, but plausible). Our thanks to Vandel for his generous permission to use his story.
The Golden Age of Hijacking
Jeff Miller, writing in the Columbia Daily Tribune (Columbia, Missouri), calls the years 1968 to 1972 "The Golden Age of Hijacking." One hundred thirty seven airplanes are hijacked in the United States during this time, says Miller.
Why so many airplane hijackings? Research suggest four reasons.
Politics
US airlines flew most everywhere in the world, including Cuba, a favorite destination for hijackers
wanting to make statements during this tumultuous time in American politics.
Economics
Many airline felt it less expensive to pay hijacker's ransom demands and inconvenience expenses for
hijacked passengers than implement universal safety procedures at all US airports.
Inconsistency
While metal detectors and baggage screening, introduced in response to rising rates of airplane
hijackings, were available, they were not universally implemented. Some airports had them. Many did not.
Self-regulation
It wasn't until the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 that federal regulations were applied to all
air travel. Until then, many airlines were not actively engaged in preventing hijacking.
Connection
LISTEN to 9/11 Radio Stories, a Re-Imagined Radio episode.
Airplane hijackings in 1971
In 1971, there were three airplane hijackings in the United States.
June 4, 1971 . . . Glen Elmo Riggs, 58 years old, a retired coal miner from Ashford, West Virginia, hijacked a United Airlines 737 jet and demanded to be flown to Israel. He was captured at Dulles International Airport.
November 8, 1971 . . . Charles Hill, Ralph Lawernce, and Albert Finney hijacked a TWA 727 from Albuquerque to Cuba.
November 24, 1971 . . . "D.B. Cooper" hijacks Northwest Orient 305 en route from Portland, Oregon, to Seattle, Washington. ("In 1970s There Were . . .")
Production
Contents
This episode combines research, news actualities, and samples from a fictional short story, "The Last Interview" by Tom Vandel. The result is a factual documentary with a fictional ending, an exploration of radio storytelling. Vandel's short story was published in The Broken World (Tiny Road Books, 2021). Permission for use and adaptation granted by Vandel.
Cast
Jodi Lorimar as Marge Yurko
Eric Newsome as Carl Yurko
Gregory Wilson as Nick Frick
Credits
Original story, "The Last Interview," written and copyrighted by Tom Vandel (The Broken
World, Tiny Road Books, 2021). Used by permission.
Episode written, produced, and hosted by John F. Barber
Sound Design, Music, and Post Production by Marc Rose
Promotional Graphics by Holly Slocum with Evan Leyden
Social Media Strategies by Caitlyn Kruger-Lesperance
Announcing and YouTube Strategies by Rylan Eisenhauer
Significance
After more than a half-century, the hijacking of Northwest Orient Flight 305 remains the only unsolved case of passenger air piracy in American history. D.B. Cooper has never been identified. Or, captured. This episode, with its combination of fact and fiction seeks to provide some form of closure.
Comments
As it happens, I went to a meeting with the owner of Indigo Publishing, a PDX company that does all those
nasty business things that writers don't want to do — if you can pay for it, of course. One of the
other attendees was interested in publishing short stories and mentioned a friend of his who was
approached by John F. Barber, I assume, to make his DB Cooper story into a radio play. He had just
listened to it that morning and loved it. It was a real kick to tell him I was Marge! He was dazzled and
shared with the group that I actually killed somebody!!
— Jodi Lorimer (Marge Yurko)
Producer's Notes
Re-Imagined Radio has previously explored the mystery and legend surrounding D.B. Cooper as "The D.B.
Cooper Saga"
The Skyjacker, 2020
In Flight with D.B. Cooper, 2019
Skyjacker '71: The D.B. Cooper Transmissions, 2018
Numerous books are available about the hijacking of Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305 by D.B. Cooper and his escape by parachuting from the rear exit of the passenger jet airplane. I used these three for research and preparation for this episode.
D.B. Cooper and Flight 305: Reexamining the Hijacking and Disappearance, by Robert H. Edwards (Schiffer, 2021). Roberts is a mathematician, pilot, and parachutist and so brings a unique perspective to this case.
Skyjack: The Hunt for D.B. Cooper, by Geoffrey Gray (Crown, 2012). Gray reopens the case with his first-ever look at confidential FBI case files and new leads in this famous case. His account is fast moving, entertaining, but supported by well researched facts.
Norjack: The Investigation of D.B. Cooper, by Ralph Himmelsbach (Norjack Project, 1986). Norjack is the FBI code for their D.B. Cooper investigation. For more than eight years, Himmelsbach led the FBI investigation into D.B. Cooper's hijacking of Northwest Orient Air Flight 305. After retiring, Himmelsbach continued to consult for the investigation, and co-authored this accurate and first-hand account with Thomas K. Worcester of his efforts.
There are a number of interesting discrepancies in information related to the D.B. Cooper story. I note in episode how "Dan Cooper," the name written on the ticket issued the alleged Flight 305 hijacker, was mistakenly reported as "D.A. Cooper" and then "D.B. Cooper," the name which has stuck for more than half a century. How this discrepancy was generated has never been explained. Probably, it resulted from the fast-paced confusion surrounding the story of the Flight 305 hijacking as it evolved.
You heard Michael Cooper tell in episode how the man who came to be called "D.B. Cooper"
". . . tried . . . he tried to board the airplane [in Portland] before . . . uh . . . before it was
officiall allowed to board and then . . . um . . . he was the first one when they did allow people to
walk cross the tarmac to get on the plane."
— Cooper, Michael. "Inside the D.B. Ccooper Hijacking: A Passenger' Story with Michael Cooper."
Geoffrey Gray has a different story. Gray is the author of Skyjack: The Hunt for D.B. Cooper. He says Larry Finegold was the first passenger to board in Portland. Finegold is a Federal Prosecutor. He spent the day watching the Mayor of San Francisco's trial on corruption charges in Vancouver, Washington, just across the Columbia River from the airport (Gray 15). It's unclear how Gray determined the order of boarding Flight 305 as most airlines at this time didn't use assigned seating or boarding by ticket class. Michael Cooper's further remarks support the lack of assigned seating.
Michael Cooper also tells us he witnessed a stewardess carry the money sack from door to the rear of the airplane. Geoffrey Gray says Tina Mucklow drops the money bag on the floor, just inside the aircraft door, and drags it down the aisle to the rear of the airplane (Gray 69). I guess it doesn't really matter how the money bag got from the front to the rear of the airplane, but his discrepancy does illustrate that direct witness can often be overlooked, or misrepresented.
While the first half of our program is factual, based on research and actualities, the second half is fictional. In Tom Vandel's original story, "The Last Interview," Nick Frick is killed. Marge and Carl Yurko (the man who could be D.B. Cooper) disappear. Where Vandel used an omnipresent narrator to tell his story, we needed some other device, something more in line with Re-Imagined Radio's practice of using voice, music, and sound effects to tell radio stories.
We settled on a recorder small enough to fit into Frick's jacket pocket, tough enough to protect a recording of the interview which becomes the basis for our story. The Sony NT-1 "Scoopman" micro-cassette recorder which Frick tested just before beginning his interview with Yurko, and later found in the woods near Olney, Oregon, fits easily in a hand, or pocket, being 4.4 x 0.9 x 2.2 inches in size. The cassette tape recording medium is smaller than a postage stamp, the world's smallest. Learn more here→.
Anyone have one of these recorders they'd like to donate to the Re-Imagined Radio Archives?
— John F. Barber
Resources
In 1970s There Were 17 Airplane Hijackings in the USA→. Professional Pilots Rumour Network.
Nation: The $100 Million Skyjack→. Time. June 15, 1970.
CBS. Author Talk: Geoffrey Gray
"Skyjack"→.
YouTube. Sep. 2, 2011.
Jeff Glor talks to author Geoffrey Gray about his book Skyjack: The Hunt for D.B. Cooper.
Beck, Kathrine. Dan Cooper parachutes from skyjacked jetliner on November 24, 1971→. HistoryLink.org. Aug. 30, 2011.
FBI. D.B. Cooper→. FBI Records:
The
Vault.
FBI investigative files, November 1971 to May 1992. Provided in response to FOIA requests.
Miller, Jeff. Miller: Airplane Hijackings During the Late 1960s and Early 1970s→. Columbia Daily Tribune. July 2, 2023.
Promotion
Press
Graphics
