D.B. Cooper's parachute found or not, the guy's still awesome.

D.B. Cooper. What a man! What a legend! D.B. Cooper, for those that don't know, hijacked a plane in 1971. Claiming to have a bomb in his briefcase, he demanded that he be provided with several sets of parachutes and $200,000 in unmarked $20 bills. All of this was to be delivered when the plane he had hijacked landed in Seattle. And it all was. FBI agents took microfilm pictures of each and every one of the 100,000 $20 bills and got the parachutes from a nearby skydiving school. Cooper sat in the plane drinking bourbon and soda while waiting for the police to deliver him his items. He also demanded that meals be brought to the airplane's crew. Shortly upon taking off, en route to Reno, Nevada, D.B. "Dan" Cooper opened the rear air stairs door of the aircraft and jumped out into the night somewhere over Oregon's wilderness. No trace of his parachute or even a single $20 was found until 1980 when a $5,000 bundle of $20's was found along the banks of the Columbia river.

It's possible that another piece of the mystery may have been found.

A tattered, half-buried parachute unearthed by kids had D.B. Cooper country chattering Wednesday over the fate of the skyjacker, who leapt from a plane 36 years ago and into the lore of the Pacific Northwest.

While the FBI investigates whether the fabric came from the world's only unsolved skyjacking, the discovery re-energized a legend in the southwestern Washington woods where Cooper may have landed, and where time has helped turn him into a folk hero.

[...]

Retired FBI agent Ralph Himmelsbach, of Woodburn, Ore., who worked the Cooper case, said Wednesday he doubts the remnant found near Amboy could be the nylon parachute Cooper carried when he jumped into poor conditions over rough terrain.

"Lying in the mud, mostly wet, would not be the kind of environment that would be good for a parachute," he said.

A parachute expert, however, said the nylon could have lasted.

"A parachute that was buried could last a very long time," said Gary Peek of the Missouri-based Parks College Parachute Research Group, which does parachute research on contract for the military.

Like cars, parachutes have serial numbers, and identification that includes dates of production and names of the manufacturers. And the man who supplied the parachute Cooper is believed to have used says he would be able to identify it.

"It was my parachute," said Earl Cossey of Woodinville, Wash. "So, yes, I'd be able to identify it to this day."

Cossey was a pilot and ran a skydiving school at the time in Issaquah, Wash. When Cooper demanded parachutes, the FBI got in touch with him.

"Maybe I owe him if he didn't get that parachute out and working," Cossey said Wednesday.
- Source

Whether the found parachute was used by D.B. doesn't really matter. It won't really crack the case, nor does it really muddy it even more. Conditions when D.B. jumped were "unfavorable" to say the least. High winds, cold weather, and parachuting into the remote winlderness aren't very conducive to an effective getaway. The finding of the parachute doesn't confirm his survival, nor does it confirm his death.

So, it looks like the legend of D.B. Cooper will simply continue, despite ownership of the parachute being confirmed or not. Personally, I hope he did make it. D.B., I tip my glass to you. Cheers!