As someone who has actually jumped out of a Boeing 727 I can say D.B. Cooper was a fucking idiot, here's why...

The sheer stupidity of the unknown jumper

DB Cooper is the nickname of a mysterious hijacker, who in 1971, hijacked a Boeing 727 before escaping by parachute with a bag of money – and has never been identified or apprehended. With the recent release of 'D. B. Cooper, where are you?!' on Netflix there is renewed interest in this intriguing enigma. Cooper has always interested me, even more so after I took up skydiving myself. Over the years I racked up six hours and fourteen minutes in freefall time, at 72 seconds per jump, and was also able to join the small number of people who have actually jumped from a 727, at the World Freefall Convention in 1996. So while I’m not going to claim to be an expert in hijacking, I can argue that my viewpoint isn’t totally uninformed.

For the West Coast skydiving community DB Cooper is a semi-mythical figure with a strong Robin Hood vibe. The bedrock assumption was that he was an experienced jumper. Questioning the idea that he was competent would go about as well as mentioning the teachings of The Man In Red (an aggressively Santa-denying teacher) in the presence of small children.

With hindsight, this is really odd. While the public perceives skydivers to be a cross between The Dude from The Big Lebowski and Biggles (Ed: I don't) the truth is that they are usually smart, calculating people who think several steps ahead and plan things in detail. While a group of skydivers might look chaotic as they leave a plane, the reality is that everything is planned down to the second and the inch. You know exactly where you put your hands and feet at different stages of the exit. People even have specific jobs - I was a rear-rear-float. What looks like random chaos to outsiders is in fact just as carefully planned as the activities of a Premier League football team. Which makes the unwillingness to question DB Cooper’s competence really odd, as any experienced jumper planning it would have not made the dreadful social and fashion choices he did.

Faux Pas #1: Never ask someone if you can borrow one of their outfits in the middle of a soirée

Experienced jumpers hate borrowing gear. Buying your own rig is the first thing you do when you finish training. It’s not that you’re afraid that borrowed gear won’t work - it’s that the handles will be in slightly different places, and life is much simpler if they are always in exactly the same place when you reach for them, not two inches to the left. There’s also the issue of being dependent on somebody else’s stuff being available, and the risk that you might damage it.