Famous Days for Students of English

24-11-1971

It is November 24, 1971. A man comes to the airport in Portland, USA. He has a briefcase in his hand. He says that his name is Dan Cooper. He buys a ticket for a short flight to Seattle.

There are 37 passengers and 6 crew members on the plane. At one moment, Cooper speaks to a flight attendant. He gives her a piece of paper with the words, “I have a bomb in my briefcase. This is a hijacking!“

Cooper opens his briefcase and he shows her the bomb. Then, Cooper says that he wants $200,000 and four parachutes.

People at the airport in Seattle prepare everything for Cooper. When Cooper gets the money and parachutes, all the passengers can go. He only keeps 2 pilots, a flight engineer, and one flight attendant. He tells the pilots to fly to Reno, Nevada. He tells all the crew members that they must stay in the cockpit.

It is a night. The clouds are low and the winds are strong. At one moment, the pilots feel that the plane shakes. This can be a moment when Cooper opens the back door of the plane. Maybe he jumps out of the plane.

When the plane comes to Reno, people see that the plane is empty. Many people from the FBI start to look for Cooper. They never find Cooper or his dead body.

Difficult words: hijack (to take control of a plane by using force), flight (a journey in a plane), crew (people who work on a plane), flight attendant (somebody who serves food and drinks to passengers on a plane), parachute (a thing which people use when they jump out of a plane), cockpit (the place in a plane where the pilot sits), empty (with nothing inside), look for (to try to find).