William Rataczak, who served as co-pilot on the infamous 1971 flight hijacked by the mysterious DB Cooper, has died. Rataczak, a former Air Force pilot and Northwest Orient Airlines employee, passed away of pneumonia at an assisted living center in Minnesota on Oct. 22 at the age of 86, his son tells the New York Times. He was 32 and in his sixth year with the airline when he found himself at the center of one of America's most enduring unsolved crimes. On Nov. 24, 1971, a man identifying himself as Dan Cooper boarded a Boeing 727 in Portland, Ore., handed a flight attendant a note saying he had a bomb, then calmly demanded $200,000 and four parachutes.
Rataczak later recalled the confusion and concern in the cockpit, especially over Cooper's request for multiple parachutes, which made the crew fear they might be forced to jump as well. The hijacker released the passengers in Seattle, kept the remaining crew on board, and after taking off again, parachuted into the night over the Pacific Northwest—apparently never to be seen again.
Rataczak—who, an obituary notes "earned his pilot's license even before he could legally drive" and racked up 35,000 hours of flying time—spent much of his life fielding questions about that day, as the DB Cooper case grew into legend, spawning books, documentaries, and legions of amateur sleuths. The FBI eventually closed its investigation in 2016, having never identified Cooper or recovered most of the ransom. Rataczak, who retired from Northwest in 1999, thought he knew what happened to the hijacker, telling the AP, "My mind tells me he's dead. And my heart tells me I hope he is, because he caused a great number of people a great deal of grief."
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