The 1971skyjacking has baffled the FBI for decades. It is the only unsolved skyjacking case the FBI has had. They have not found any trace of D. B. Cooper. All that was ever found was part of the ransom money. There has never been a successful lead to his body or even his whereabouts. Jerry Thomas, a retired Army infantryman has made it his mission to find something that could lead to Cooper's whereabouts. He is convinced that someday he will find a clue or maybe the trail of D. B. Cooper. Up to this day he has found nothing. Once Cooper disappeared off that plane he never appeared again. Or did he? Bob Huddleston was his real name. He was a Native American with green eyes and an olive complexion. He was a drifter and a card player native to Oregon. He had knowledge of aerodynamics and knew just how he was going to make this skyjacking work. So after demanding 200,000 dollars and two parachutes he jumped out of the aircraft and made history.Bob Rizzo, a San Diego cabdriver was Bob Huddleston's friend and poker buddy. One night while sitting in the bar, Rizzo confided in Huddleston. He told Huddleston that he was a fugitive wanted by the FBI for counterfeiting. Huddleston then decided he could tell Rizzo his story. He proceeded to tell Rizzo that he had skyjacked an airplane in 1971. Rizzo could not believe it. He had heard about the skyjacking and now the skyjacker was sitting in front of him. Huddleston told him the whole story.It was a cold and stormy November night when it happened. He had bought an airline ticket under the name Don Cooper to throw off the authorities. Then he boarded airplane that was headed to from Portland to Seattle. On the plane he threatened the stewardess with a bomb. All the passengers except Huddleston got off the plane in Seattle. After collecting the 200,000 ransom dollars that he had demanded, he ordered the pilot to take off again. He ordered the pilot to fly at only 10,000 feet so he could safely parachute out.At about 8 pm Huddleston, equipped with 2 parachutes and the money tied around his waist jumped from the aircraft. As he feel into the night some of the money spilled from his bag (which was later found by a little boy). He landed next to a river in a tree 10 feet off the ground. He was injured as he landed in the tree so he crawled to a cave. Later he hitchhiked into Portland where he stayed for a few months to recover.He hid the money till 1978, when he took it to an Indian reservation to be laundered. He later moved to San Diego where he met Bob Rizzo.In the years that followed the skyjacking Huddleston often changed his appearance by growing a beard, shaving his head, or wearing a ponytail. He didn't want to be recognized in case he ran into a member of the flight crew.Bob Rizzo kept this secret until Huddleston died in 1986 of a cocaine overdose. He then went to the authorities and told them the whole story. The FBI had no way of proving it--Huddleston was already dead.There is no doubt that Bob Huddleston was D. B. Cooper, the alleged skyjacker of 1971. His skyjacking was planned and pulled off so well the FBI could not solve it. They will most likely never find anything because he survived the jump and got rid of the evidence. If it were not for Bob Rizzo we would have never known what happened to Bob Huddleston--AKA D. B. Cooper.