Man Tried To Open Exit Doors During A Hawaiian Airlines Flight
By Kevin Wilkerson, PubClub.com Travel Editor
Posted Oct. 29, 2020
The mystery of DB Cooper – a daredevil who parachuted out of the back of an in-flight plane – has yet to be solved.
But either he’s emerged in 2020 or maybe this guy is a modern-day DB Cooper.
Hawaiian Airlines reports that an unruly passenger attempted to get off the plane during flight. Unlike Cooper, he did not use a back staircase but rather tried to get out through one of the plane’s exit doors on a flight from Los Angeles to Honolulu.
He did not realize that due to obvious safety reasons, the exit doors on planes do not open during flight.
“I wrapped my arms around him and I tried to separate him from the door and the flight attendant, and in the process, the flight attendant was hurt because he was so determined to get out, or stay attached to the door handle,” passenger Keenan Kurihara told Hawaii News Now.
Hawaiian called the man an “unruly passenger” and added that crew members and an an off-duty law enforcement officer managed to restrain the man. He was taken into federal custody upon landing in Honolulu.
The airline did not say whether or not he was wearing a parachute.
The legendary Cooper made international headlines when he highjacked a Northwest Airlines flight on Thanksgiving weekend in 1971 soon after takeoff in Portland. After an exchange of passengers for $200,000 in cash, he parachuted out the back of the plane; this was possible then, as there was a back staircase for loading and unloading of passengers.
Cooper – not his real name tho he bought the ticket under the name of Dan Cooper – disappeared somewhere in the Pacific Northwest night.
He has never been identified and never been found. Some of the money was recovered on a river bank several years later but that is the only trace of anything from that daring move. Needless to say, this mystery has spawned dozens of theories as who his identity and whereabouts, not of which has been substantiated or confirmed.
After exhaustive research, the FBI concluded that Cooper did not survive the jump, tho the case remains open to this day.
As such, it remains one of America’s great mysteries and has made Cooper such a cult hero among some people that an event called DB Cooper Days are celebrated each November at the Ariel Store and Tavern in a remote area of Washington state.
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