D. B. Cooper is a media epithet used to refer to an unidentified man who hijacked a Boeing 727 aircraft in United States airspace on the afternoon of November 24, 1971. The aircraft was operated by Northwest Orient Airlines and was flying from Portland, Oregon, to Seattle, Washington. The hijacker extorted $200,000 in ransom (equivalent to $1,278,000 in 2020), asked to be flown to Reno, Nevada, then parachuted to an uncertain fate over southwestern Washington part-way through the second flight. A small portion of the ransom was found along the banks of the Columbia River in 1980, which triggered renewed interest but ultimately only deepened the mystery; the great majority of the ransom remains unrecovered. The man purchased his airline ticket using the alias Dan Cooper but, because of a news miscommunication, became known in popular culture as D. B. Cooper.