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The unsolved case of D.B. Cooper hijacking a plane demanding a two hundred thousand dollar ransom and then never again appearing in public is one of the most mysterious cases that the FBI has ever come across. In fact, it's the only air piracy event in commercial aviation history that has never been solved until now after 45 years on the FBI's most wanted list. New evidence in the form of secret FBI documents that have only now been released proved the real identity of this notorious criminal. So who is he and how did he get away with this perfect crime? It's time to answer those questions. On Wednesday, November 24th, 1971, the day before Thanksgiving, an unidentified man would commit one of the most infamous aviation crimes of all time on board Northwest Orient Flight 305 from Portland to Seattle, a six foot tall man dressed in an elegant dark suit carried out a mid-air robbery like we've never seen. With a lack of security presence and clear, meticulous planning. His real identity and location would remain an incredible mystery for decades. And that's what makes his case so intriguing. His name was Dan Cooper, or at least that's the alias that he gave the woman at the airport check in desk. And as most criminals do to avoid any paper trail, he used cold, hard cash to buy the ticket on board the plane. That's when it started to get interesting. The midair heist was clearly something Cooper had preempted because the chaos began when he handed a flight attendant a handwritten note and whispered calmly, Miss, you'd better look at that note. I have a bomb. The flight attendant took a seat next to Cooper, glanced into his briefcase and quickly realized that the threat was very real. So she had no choice but to listen to his demands. What exactly did Cooper want? Three things. First, two hundred thousand dollars next for parachutes. And finally, a fuel truck standing by in Seattle to refuel the aircraft upon arrival. The odd thing is that he remained polite and calm the entire time. Another flight attendant even described him as thoughtful, offering to buy meals for the flight crew. But why did he ask for four parachutes? Strategic thinking? If he only asked for parachutes for himself, then the authorities may have sabotaged them by requesting extras. They were forced to consider the possibility of a hostage and therefore wouldn't tamper with the equipment anyway. On the ground, authorities were scrambling to meet Cooper's demands as the plane circled around the Seattle airport airspace, eventually close to three hours after departure on what was supposed to be a 30 minute flight. The plane landed. Cooper received his demands, release the thirty six other passengers safely, and then instructed the crew to take off en route to Mexico with a long list of obscure flight requirements. After the plane took off a second time, Cooper parachuted out into the abyss somewhere over the Pacific Northwest, unseen by any of the crew on board. It wasn't until the plane landed for a refuel at Reno Airport in Nevada that police realized that Cooper was gone and he was never seen again. That's the day in a nutshell for you pulled on. If he said his name was Dan, then why have we been calling him D.B. Cooper for close to 50 years? Well, the DB part actually surfaced as the result of an overeager reporter confusing one of the first suspects, DB Cooper, with the alias that the real criminal had used. Dan Cooper thereafter. DB just stuck. OK, so as soon as Cooper jumped from that Boeing, it was all hands on deck for the FBI and local police. Incredibly, the investigation lasted almost half a century. On July 8th, 2016, the FBI finally announced that it was giving up. The majority of their initial search efforts were concentrated in Washington State near Mount St. Helens, with emphasis also placed on the Clark and Cowlitz counties. Plus neighboring Oregon, door to door searches of local farmhouses were even conducted. These guys were desperate without much to find on the ground, fixed wing aircraft and helicopters from the Oregon Army National Guard were sent to scour the flight path for clues, but nothing substantial was discovered there either. So without significant progress made. The FBI reached out to the public for help. A month after the crime, they sent their ransom serial numbers to businesses and banks with rewards of up to twenty five thousand dollars and then took it one step further, continually offering rewards for any member of the general population who could turn in any matching money. Over the years, there were hundreds of suspects, but only a select few made a solid case. Richard McCoy Jr. was a name that floated around as the real D.B. Cooper. Why? Because he committed a copycat crime in Denver in 1972. Since he was jailed for forty five years for the copycat crime, authorities had plenty of reason to suspect that he carried out the original one, too, but they couldn't prove it. Why? Because he was at home having Thanksgiving dinner in Utah with his family. The cops did actually find more evidence. In 1980, a small amount of ransom bills along the banks of the Columbia River. But all this did was raise more questions than it did provide answers. How did this momentous crime impact the rest of the world? As you can imagine, there were a number of rules in. Regulations that changed things to D.B. Cooper's ransom was the most famous, but it certainly wasn't the only one after 19 ransom attempts in 1972, in early 1973, the FAA began requiring airlines to search all passengers and their bags. And the new laws worked, reducing these sorts of acts to next to nothing. In the year after airplanes themselves were also changed. Among the changes, peepholes became mandatory in all cockpit doors. For forty five years, D.B. Cooper was on the FBI's most wanted list. Now, with new evidence in the form of secret FBI files that have only now been released, including a long list of reports and testimonies, all signs point to one man. The name you need to know is Robert Reich Straw. The documents showed that Robert wasn't just your average Joe. He was a former U.S. Army pilot who had flown helicopters in the First Cavalry Division during the Vietnam War. This meant that he was trained in explosives, demolition and parachuting. He knew how to construct weapons and jump safely from planes. Plus, being a former pilot, it would have explained his thought out list of specific flight requirements. While Iraq didn't expressly utter the words I am D.B. Cooper when interviewed, he didn't deny it either. Saying Could have been, could have been. And if that's not as clear as an indication is any. He also said, I'm probably one of the only people who can close the case. The motive was clear to the newly released documents reveal that he'd been kicked out of the Army for lying just a few months before the plane jacking. And if you don't believe he had criminal blood running through his veins, he stood trial for his stepfather's death as well, although he was acquitted. But all of the new information pointing to rack straw adds layers of controversy as well. Some people believe that it could have been an inside job or was deliberately covered up by the FBI. They had all this information since the 70s but did nothing with it. But why? Because the newly uncovered FBI documents reveal that the investigators believed that D.B. Cooper, or should we say Robert Extra, could have actually been an undercover CIA agent. Rock, Vietnam field commander, even confirmed it himself, in the words of cold case investigator Tom Cobbora. He got away with the ransom, invested it in property, and the FBI turned a blind eye flat out lying and covering up his crimes to avoid embarrassing the government. That's all for how the FBI finally solved the case of D.B. Cooper. If you were on the run for decades, where would you hide? Let us know in the comments. Make sure to like this video. Subscribe to the cyberversechannel and join our notification squad. Thanks for watching. And we'll see you next time.