A TATTERED, half-buried parachute unearthed by children has renewed speculation over the fate of DB Cooper, the skyjacker who leapt from a plane 36 years ago and into the lore of the Pacific north-west.
While the FBI investigates whether the fabric came from the skyjacking, the discovery has re-energised a legend in the woods of south-west Washington state where Cooper may have landed, where he has become a folk hero.
A hand-lettered sign ou
tside Jim Ford's ice cream and espresso shop in Amboy, the area where the parachute was found, is advertising a "DB Cooper Mystery Mocha" to honour the search.
"It's good fun," Mr Ford said.
Marvin Case, editor of the weekly Reflector newspaper in Battle Ground, about 12 miles south of Amboy, said of Cooper: "He's seen now as not such a bad guy, even though he hijacked a plane and got away with the money."
In November 1971, a man identifying himself as Dan Cooper – later mistakenly but enduringly identified as DB Cooper – hijacked a Northwest Orient flight from Portland, Oregon, to Seattle. He handed a note to a flight attendant on the Boeing 727, which stated he had a bomb in his briefcase and "would use it if necessary".
The note also included demands for $200,000 in unmarked $20 bills, and two sets of parachutes – two main back chutes and two emergency chest chutes – which were to be made available at Seattle-Tacoma airport. The plane was kept in a holding pattern above the airport while Cooper's demands were met.
After landing at the airport, Cooper released the passengers in exchange for the ransom and parachutes and then asked to be flown to Mexico at an altitude of about 10,000 feet. However, the crew informed him that the plane would only fly 1,000 miles under the conditions he stated, so the plane was put on a course to Reno, Nevada, where it was to refuel again.
However, Cooper lowered the plane's aft stairs and jumped out somewhere near the Oregon state line, wearing a set of the parachutes.
At the time he jumped, the plane was in the midst of a heavy rainstorm and no lights from the ground would have been visible due to heavy cloud cover.
An 18-day search of Cooper's projected landing zone was carried out, but no trace of him was ever found.
However, in 1978, a placard containing instructions on how to lower the aft stairs of a Boeing 727 was found by a hunter just a few flying minutes north of Cooper's projected drop zone.
Cooper may have landed around Amboy, less than 30 miles from Portland, the same area where children playing outside their home recently found fabric sticking out of the ground where their father had been grading a road, FBI agent Larry Carr said.
The children, responding to a publicity campaign, urged their father to call the FBI, Mr Carr said, and when their find became public this week, it reignited talk of the region's favourite folk hero.
In Ariel, about 20 miles north-west of Amboy, the Ariel Store has an annual DB Cooper party.
Dona Elliot, owner of the store, said she thought Cooper hid in brush and trees while waiting for an accomplice to take him to the airport in Portland.
"It's the perfect place; no-one would have looked for him there," she said.
The T-shirt for this year's party will have a parachute theme, she said, even though she is sceptical that the artefact the children found is Cooper's.
"It will be 37 years in November," she said. "There can't be too much left of that parachute."
The FBI does not want to excavate the property until it confirms, either through an expert's examination or scientific analysis of the fabric, whether the chute is the right kind.
If it is Cooper's parachute, that will solve one mystery – where he apparently landed – but it will raise another, Mr Carr said.
In 1980, a family on a picnic found $5,880 of Cooper's money in a bag on a Columbia River beach, near Vancouver.
Some investigators believed it might have been washed downstream by the Washougal River. However, if Cooper landed near Amboy and stashed the bag there, it could not have naturally reached the Washougal.
Mr Carr said: "If this is DB Cooper's parachute, the money could not have arrived at its discovery location by natural means. That whole theory is out the window."
However, Ralph Himmelsbach, a retired FBI agent from Woodburn, Oregon, who worked on the DB Cooper case, said he doubts the remnant of fabric found near Amboy could be the nylon parachute Cooper carried when he jumped, considering the poor conditions and rough terrain.
"Lying in the mud, mostly wet, would not be the kind of environment that would be good for a parachute," he said.
One parachute expert, however, said that the nylon could have lasted.
"A parachute that was buried could last a very long time," said Gary Peek of the Missouri-based Parks College Parachute Research Group, which carries out parachute research on contract for the military.
Like cars, parachutes have serial numbers and identification details that include dates of production and names of the manufacturers.
And the man who supplied the parachute Cooper is believed to have used says he would be able to identify it.
"It was my parachute," said Earl Cossey of Woodinville, Washington. "So, yes, I'd be able to identify it to this day."
Mr Cossey was a pilot and ran a skydiving school at the time in Issaquah, Washington. When Cooper demanded parachutes, the FBI got in touch with him.
"Maybe I owe him if he didn't get that parachute out and working," Mr Cossey said.
The FBI doubts Cooper survived because the weather conditions were poor, the terrain was rough and Cooper was lightly dressed.
"The night it happened, I thought he had a 50 per cent chance," Mr Himmelsbach said. "It has gone down since then."
Other theories abound. Richard Tosaw, author of DB Cooper: Dead or Alive? claims Cooper died when his plunge ended in the Columbia River.
However, the Amboy locals prefer to think he made it.
Idy Gilbert, of Nick's Bar & Grill, said: "I think he's out there enjoying his money.
"Most people here say they think he made it. We may never know."
