# Has a white american ever hijacked an airplane? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 15, 2002, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-white-american-ever-hijacked-an-airplane/123966 "2002-08-15T04:18:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2002, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-white-american-ever-hijacked-an-airplane/123966/1 "2002-08-15T04:18:26Z")
For that matter has an American ever hijacked an airplane? Has a white person (of any nationality) ever hijacked an airplane? Don’t bother posting if you just want to say that this offends you, it’s a legitimate question and I **do not** mean it as racist and I’m not trying to start trouble. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2002, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-white-american-ever-hijacked-an-airplane/123966/2 "2002-08-15T04:21:52Z")
Offhand, [D. B. Cooper](http://www.who2.com/dbcooper.html) comes to mind. ---
**Author:** ![SmackFu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2002, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-white-american-ever-hijacked-an-airplane/123966/3 "2002-08-15T05:16:18Z")
[Richard Floyd McCoy, Jr.](http://www.fbi.gov/libref/historic/famcases/mccoy/mccoy.htm) was another “para-jacker”, like Cooper. He was from Utah and went to BYU, so (making a broad generalization) he was probably white. Regardless, hijackings used to be **much** more common in the U.S. For instance, from [this article](http://www.gladwell.com/2001/2001_10_01_a_hijack.htm): > [@](#): > > In the aftermath of Cooper’s leap, “para-jacking,” as it was known, became an epidemic in American skies. Of the thirty-one hijackings in the United States the following year, nineteen were attempts at Cooper-style extortion, and in fifteen of those cases the hijackers demanded parachutes so that they, too, could leap to freedom. That’s just amazing that there were 31 hijackings in one year in the US. For comparison, there were **zero** real hijackings in the US between 1996 and 2000 (all the [stats](http://cas.faa.gov/crimacts/) I could find). Also, another [paper which includes a fascinating history of aircraft hijackings](http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~surette/hijacking.html). To the OP, regarding U.S. hijackings between 1968-1972: > [@](#): > > The white, non-Latin individuals. . . composed little more than a third of all transportation hijackers. ---
**Author:** ![woolly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ebca7d/32.png) [@woolly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/woolly)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2002, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-white-american-ever-hijacked-an-airplane/123966/4 "2002-08-15T05:22:49Z")
[in the UK](http://www.abdn.ac.uk/mammal/endanger.htm) [Miloslav Hrabinec](http://www.nt.gov.au/pfes/police/stations/alicesprings/mcneill72.htm) a Czechoslovakian national committed Australia’s first hijacking at Alice Springs airport in 1972. ---
**Author:** ![woolly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ebca7d/32.png) [@woolly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/woolly)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2002, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-white-american-ever-hijacked-an-airplane/123966/5 "2002-08-15T05:24:49Z")
oops, the first link “in the UK” is a residual link from a previous post. Preview son, preview. ---
**Author:** ![Big\_Kahuna\_Burger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Big\_Kahuna\_Burger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Big_Kahuna_Burger)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2002, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-white-american-ever-hijacked-an-airplane/123966/6 "2002-08-15T05:38:39Z")
In some of the articles from **Terminus Est’s** site there’s mention of a guy from Montana who had tried to hijack a plane with a gun a few weeks before and failed because he was overcome by the crew. Cooper refined the approach by using a bomb. ---
**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2002, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-white-american-ever-hijacked-an-airplane/123966/7 "2002-08-15T05:49:15Z")
> [@](#): > > Cooper refined the approach by using a bomb. And a parachute. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2002, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-white-american-ever-hijacked-an-airplane/123966/8 "2002-08-15T14:06:47Z")
In the late 70s there were several attempts by white American women to hijack airplanes or helicopters to break their boyfriends out of the federal prison in Marion, IL. One of the most notable ones ended up with the helicopter pilot wrestling the woman while in flight and her being killed when her gun went off. ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2002, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-white-american-ever-hijacked-an-airplane/123966/9 "2002-08-15T14:49:56Z")
And it actually wasn’t D.B. Cooper. D.B. was found on the other side of Oregon and dismissed as a suspect while the hijacking was still ongoing. The person they were trying to identify was listed as D. Cooper on the manifest but an overzealous reporter wrote that it was D.B. and the monnikor stuck. ---
**Author:** ![amarinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2002, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-white-american-ever-hijacked-an-airplane/123966/10 "2002-08-15T15:45:23Z")
Samuel Joseph Byck attempted to hijack a plan and crash it into the White House in 1974. He was caught and killed before the plane took off, but… ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2002, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-white-american-ever-hijacked-an-airplane/123966/11 "2002-08-15T16:09:29Z")
Yup. American hijackers are either out and out loonies or greedy. Not sure whether this is an improvement over “other” “motivations” or not. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2002, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-white-american-ever-hijacked-an-airplane/123966/12 "2002-08-15T16:28:35Z")
No, the person was listed on the manifest as Dan Cooper. ---
**Author:** ![Horseflesh](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horseflesh/32/7502_2.png) [@Horseflesh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horseflesh)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2002, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-white-american-ever-hijacked-an-airplane/123966/13 "2002-08-16T03:38:01Z")
[A likely recent suspect of the “D.B. Cooper” skyjacking.](http://www.usnews.com/usnews/doubleissue/mysteries/cooper.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2002, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-white-american-ever-hijacked-an-airplane/123966/14 "2002-08-16T03:48:07Z")
Interesting article. But it doesn’t address how several thousand of the $200,000 the hijacker received ended up being found rotting on a river bank, years later. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2002, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-white-american-ever-hijacked-an-airplane/123966/15 "2002-08-16T07:28:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Walloon \* > \*\*Interesting article. But it doesn’t address how several thousand of the $200,000 the hijacker received ended up being found rotting on a river bank, years later. \*\* NPR did a piece on that guy, and while I forget the details, at some point, near the end of his life, he and his wife were in the woods and he was furiously looking for a bucket of money that he’d buried and lost. That could be the source of the money you mention.