PORTLAND -- Dozens of enthusiasts gathered Saturday for the first-ever D.B. Cooper Symposium at the Portland Hilton. On Thanksgiving eve 1971 Cooper hijacked a flight from Seattle to Portland.
He jumped out of the plane somewhere over Southeast Washington, carrying $200,000 in ransom money.
Cooper was never officially identified or found.
Symposium host and author Geoffrey Gray hoped the gathering of enthusiasts would help move the case forward.
In recent years, the big breaks have actually come from citizens, he said. So my hope is to put everyone together and push the case a little farther, discuss new leads, and see where it takes us.
The D.B. Cooper case is still an open FBI investigation.
