Today: Vanished in Mid Air: D. B. Cooper

Welcome on this Weird Wednesday! Today we’re going to take off in a plane, but land without one…somewhere over the vast Pacific Northwest. Sound fun? Then put those tray tables up, because we’re heading out.

It’s a strange phenomenon to have a person who’s famous for being unidentified. Everybody knows who they are, precisely because nobody knows who they are. “Dan Cooper” is one of those people. The name was an alias, and was further misreported by the press as D. B. Cooper. So who was he? Well, let’s take a look.

On Nov 24, 1971, the day before Thanksgiving, a man boarded Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305 for a short hop between Portland, OR, and Seattle, WA. This man, holding a ticket under the name “Dan Cooper,”  passed a flight attendant a note saying he had a bomb, and asking for what today would be $1.6 million and four parachutes. (Why four? Possibly Cooper wanted to be sure he was given working parachutes, by insinuating he was going to take a hostage with him—a main and a backup parachute for each of them.)

Cooper proved a gentleman highjacker: when the plane landed in Seattle, and the $200,000 ransom was paid, Cooper let the passengers go. He then asked the flight crew to take him to Mexico City. But partway through that second flight, after ordering all crew to the cockpit, Cooper opened a door and extended an airstair.

Around 8 p.m., in the dark of night, Cooper parachuted out somewhere over Washington, with the vast Pacific Northwest forest below him. And from there, he vanished.

Check out the blog post for the whole story and some writing prompts, such as:

Murder most foul. What if D. B. Cooper vanished because he was murdered? Say he landed safely and started making his way out of the forest with the money. Maybe he had an accomplice who was hungry for the cash. Maybe he randomly met someone who noticed he was carrying $200,000 in a bag. Or maybe the killer didn’t even know about the money—the PNW has its share of serial killers who pick up hitchhikers on the road. You could write a story where the hijacker’s luck only holds out long enough for him to put his feet on the ground—after that, he’s in more danger than he was jumping out of the plane.

DannyeChase.com ~ AO3 ~ Linktree ~ The Vampire Haven erotic romance series ~ Weird Wednesday writing prompts blog ~ Resources for Writers

A free, downloadable spreadsheet for querying a novel

I’ve spent a year in the query trenches for a queer romance novel, and I’ve learned so much about querying! So here is the fruit of my labor: a spreadsheet for querying authors.

From Manuscript Wishlist to comps to how many agents you can query from a single agency.

Happy writing and good luck!

DannyeChase.com ~ AO3 ~ Linktree ~ The Vampire Haven erotic romance series ~ Weird Wednesday writing prompts blog ~ Resources for Writers