D.B. Cooper Hijacking Money
Verdict summary
PinPoint Treasure lists D.B. Cooper Hijacking Money as partially recovered. The only unsolved skyjacking in American history — most of the money has never been found. A source-origin review has not been completed for this case, so the earliest traceable teller is UNKNOWN. The published search constraint is Lewis River corridor / Columbia River near Tena Bar, Washington. Estimated value is reported as stated by its source: $200,000 (1971; ~$1.5M today; $5,800 recovered).
On Nov 24 1971, "D.B. Cooper" hijacked a Northwest Orient flight and parachuted out over Washington with $200,000 in marked $20 bills. In 1980 a child found $5,800 of the marked bills along the Columbia River near Tena Bar. The remainder is still missing.
Case overview: estimated value $200,000 (1971; ~$1.5M today; $5,800 recovered); current status partially-recovered; era 1971.
Search area: Lewis River corridor / Columbia River near Tena Bar, Washington
Best modern approach: Hydrologic flood-path analysis + LiDAR creek-bed survey.
Evidence and provenance: 1980 Tena Bar recovery (forensic match); FBI case file (closed 2016); Serial-number list of marked bills; Multiple modern hydrologic studies.
Legal notes: Marked bills are FBI evidence — any find must be reported to FBI Seattle.
Source origin: a source-origin review has not been completed for this case, so the earliest traceable teller is recorded as UNKNOWN.
Why this case is worth researching: D.B. Cooper Hijacking Money pairs a documented historical event with an unrecovered-cache claim, which is what the PinPoint Treasure pipeline is built to test — cross-referencing archival sources, geology, mining records, and 1-meter LiDAR terrain where coverage exists. Every claim on this page carries an evidence grade, and grades are never raised to fill a gap.
Recommended workflow for the D.B. Cooper Hijacking Money case: (1) read the primary sources and establish which of them are independent of each other, (2) run the cipher engine on any coded material, (3) scan the highest-probability bounding box with LiDAR where coverage exists, (4) cross-check anomalies against NDVI vegetation stress and iron-oxide satellite signatures, and (5) confirm land status before any field work.