The Hijacking of American Flight 119: How D.B. Cooper Inspired a Skyjacking Craze and the Fbi's Battle to Stop It (Wigger John)(Pevná vazba)

He pulled off what some deem the crime of the century: skyjacking a commercial jetliner, collecting a ransom of $200,000, parachuting off the aft stairs of the Boeing 727 into the night, and simply disappearing. Since November 1971, "D.B. Cooper"—no one knows his real name or identity—has become a figure of enduring fascination and obsession. The FBI pursued him for over forty years, before closing the case and leaving it unsolved.Unsolved, perhaps, but much admired. D.B. Cooper''s exploit over the skies of the American Northwest has inspired books, films, and endless speculation. What''s less known is that it inspired imitators. None were more daring than the hijacker of American Airlines Flight 119. After commandeering the flight from St. Louis with a machine gun and collecting $502,500 in ransom, he parachuted out over Indiana. Unlike Cooper, he was tracked down.In The Hijacking of American Flight 119, John Wigger explores the wave of hijackings that swept over commercial flight between 1961 and 1972. One hijacker ran across the ramp in Reno, Nevada with a pillowcase over his head, gun in hand, to seize a United Airlines flight. Another collected a large ransom in Washington, D.C. before jumping over Honduras. Yet another rode a bicycle across the tarmac with a rifle strapped to the handlebars. Motivations involved an admixture of ideology, greed, derring-do, and a desperate need to be somebody. What they had in common was that their exploits transfixed the n
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