Is the notorious skyjacking mystery finally coming to an end?

When it comes to cold cases, few continue to simmer quite like the D.B. Cooper skyjacking of Thanksgiving Eve 1971—the only unsolved commercial airline hijacking in U.S. history.

But amateur sleuth Eric Ulis believes the Federal Bureau of Investigations is blocking possible breakthroughs related to Cooper’s infamous skyjacking. And he wants to sue the FBI to make sure important details don’t get lost.

Ulis says further investigation of the notorious skyjacker’s left-behind necktie could yield additional DNA that may lead to a break in the unsolved case. But since the FBI is blocking investigation of Cooper’s tie, Ulis has no choice but to file a federal lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act, according to Portland television station KOIN.

Ulis believes there’s a small metal spindle in Cooper’s tie that could offer better results: “We actually do possess the technology, the ability to pull the smallest amounts of DNA off of metal and these types of things,” he tells KOIN.

The case of Cooper, the unknown skyjacker of a Northwest Orient Airlines plane, headed from Portland to Seattle, has baffled the world for over 50 years. A threat during the flight of a bomb yielded Cooper cash and parachutes when the plane landed in Seattle and the other passengers were allowed off. Following the stop at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, the skyjacker had the pilots take off again, this time with $200,000 worth of ransom cash and parachutes in hand, only to jump from the plane over southwest Washington ... never to be seen again.

The only evidence left after Cooper jumped from the plane were cigarette butts—destroyed before any DNA samples were taken—a tie clip, and a black clip-on tie.

Ulis believes that the FBI, along with not providing DNA results in over 20 years and ending any work on the case in 2016, may have not known about the metal in the clip-on tie due to conversations he had with investigators after the fact.

He asked to analyze the tie—the FBI has granted access to private parties in the past—but was denied. So he’s taking his fight to the next level, hopeful he’ll find DNA that can prove his theories. “That gives us the ability to take D.B. Cooper’s DNA and sort of reverse engineer this and identify his family, nephews, nieces, people of that nature,” Ulis says.

The hunt for D.B. Cooper never ends.

Tim Newcomb is a journalist based in the Pacific Northwest. He covers stadiums, sneakers, gear, infrastructure, and more for a variety of publications, including Popular Mechanics. His favorite interviews have included sit-downs with Roger Federer in Switzerland, Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles, and Tinker Hatfield in Portland. 

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