D.B., phone home

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On the stormy night of Nov. 24, 1971, a middle-aged man identifying himself as one D.B. Cooper stepped out of the rear exit of a skyjacked Northwest airliner and plummeted into southwestern Washington state and the stuff of legend.He took with him $200,000 in ransom money and two commandeered parachutes. There has been no sign of Cooper or the parachutes since, but $5,800 in tattered 20s from the stolen money turned up on the banks of the Columbia River in 1980.The time being the '70s, Cooper became a folk hero of sorts to rebellious young people, but his name is fading from memory. Well, all but one agency's memory. The FBI hasn't forgotten him or the missing loot. The reasonable assumption has been that Cooper did not survive the fall and if, as many believe, his chute never opened he would quickly have become one with the forest floor. But the FBI would like to know for sure.To kick off the new year, the bureau has, in its words, "reignited" the case and is asking the public's help, posting on its Web site artist's renderings of Cooper and photos of the money, a map of the area where he might have landed and some items he left behind on the plane -- a backup parachute, its canvas bag and a tie, a black clip-on, judging from the picture -- in hopes they might jog somebody's memory.Over the years, various claimants to being Cooper have surfaced but the feds have been able to recover the skyjacker's DNA from the tie so they'll know for sure if they've got their man. It seems like a long odds proposition. The flight attendants estimated he was in his mid-40s, which would put him in his mid- to late 70s today.You can play amateur sleuth at http://www.fbi.gov/page2/dec07/dbcooper123107.html. If you find him, call this newspaper.(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)