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One Man Jumped Out of a Plane With $200,000 Never to Be Seen Again
America’s only unsolved skyjacking
On November 24, January 1971, a day before Thanksgiving, a man walked into the Portland International Airport and purchased a one-way ticket to Seattle.
The man appeared to be an ordinary run of the mill member of the public. He was in his mid-forties, wearing a business suit with a black tie and carrying a briefcase. Nothing about his appearance was out of the ordinary.
He boarded Flight 305 and sat in his seat towards the rear of the plane, ordering a bourbon and soda before the flight was due to take off. Once the flight was in the air, it became apparent that this man was not just an ordinary member of the public.
He handed a note to the flight attendant nearest him shortly after takeoff. She assumed it was a phone number from a lonely businessman and dropped it into her purse without looking. Seeing this, the man leaned into the attendant and said: “Miss, you’d better look at that note. I have a bomb.”
Instead of a phone number, the note stated that the man had a bomb in his briefcase. Suspicious, the attendant asked if she could see the contents of the briefcase, which was opened long enough for her to see eight red cylinders attached to wires and a large cylindrical…
