My Tale
My Tale
of
of
DB Copper
DB Copper
My tale of D.B. Copper.
He was the worlds first airplane hijacker.
He was never identified or caught. I think over 50 people have been suggested as being this person. I do not think the person I am talking about was the real hijacker, but some people think he was. Here are the facts I have heard which suggest he was. This person attended Falls City Nebraska high school. You decide.
I graduated from Falls City, Nebraska Highschool. All the people I talk about were Falls City Highschool classmates of mine. A few years ago, I attended the annual high school reunion. One classmate is a person we shall classmate-J. Two others we shall call classmate-Q and classmate-Bud. The hijacker we shall call classmate-hijacker. Classmate-J had this tale to tell.
One time classmate-J had a meeting with Q and Bud in Falls City. Q said I am dying of cancer and and have a secret I want to tell before I die. Q said I think I know who D.B. Copper (the first airplane hijacker) is and want to tell someone before I die.
A little about classmate-hijacker. About a month before he graduated, he was caught stealing. An agreement was worked out with the police that they would not prosecute if he left town. Classmate-hijacker along with Q and Bud joined the army together as parachutes. A few years later my mother happen to see the father of the classmate-hijacker when he returned to Falls City. My mother asked where is classmate-hijacker now. His father said the classmate-hijacker had a benefactor in Seattle who helped him make a lot of money and the classmate-hijacker was now living as a mountain man.
At one time, Q was living in Oregon and classmate-hijacker stopped by. Classmate-hijacker said he was taking a class in high altitude jumping and was looking over Oregon for a good landing sight. Bud asked if classmate-hijacker knew how to parachute, then why was he taking such a class? Q replied that high altitude jumping is a lot different than regular parachuting. Classmate-hijacker said he was married, living in California and working at a bank. Classmate-hijacker said one of his jobs was to take old wore out money from the bank in California and fly it to a bank in Seattle to be destroyed.
Then the first airplane hijacking occurred. A picture drawing of the hijacker was in the newspaper and Q said it looked just like the classmate-hijacker. Q then got his Falls City annual out and compared the newspaper picture to his annual and they were similar. He then tried to phone the classmate-hijacker. First Q called the bank and the classmate-hijacker had quit a few days before. Then Q tried calling the first classmate-hijackers home and his wife answered all worried because her husband had disappeared.
Bud asked why did the classmate-hijacker use the name D.B. Copper? Q answered that Dan Copper was the name he used in communities around Falls City when he got into trouble. The government mistakenly used D.B. Copper in the first reports and never corrected the name. The hijacker used Dan Copper when buying his plane ticket. Bud asked why would money from the hijacking be found on a river bank? Q answered that classmate-hijacker was smart and he would do such a thing to throw people off his trail.
By the time I heard this story, Q had died of cancer and Bud had died of a heart attack. I am 88 years old so the odds are that the classmate-hijacker is dead. J is the only one known to be alive from the above tale that J told me.