If the diatom analysis is accurate, someone or something introduced the bills to the river system several months after the hijacking. This could mean Cooper survived the jump, made it out of the wilderness, and then lost or discarded the money near the river. It could mean Cooper died in or near the river, but the body and money were not exposed to the water immediately. It could mean the money traveled through the land environment for months before reaching the water.
The diatom analysis was published as a scientific paper and has been discussed in Cooper research circles, but it has not been officially adopted by the FBI as a confirmed finding, and the paper’s interpretation of the diatom evidence has not gone unchallenged.
What can be said with confidence is that the Tena Bar bills confirm the ransom was real and that part of it ended up in a specific location. Everything else about how it got there is inference and hypothesis.
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## The Legal Landscape: Hijacking Law and the Cooper Prosecution That Never Happened
The D.B. Cooper hijacking took place at a specific moment in the legal history of American aviation security. The laws that existed in 1971 to address aircraft piracy were relatively recent—the first federal anti-hijacking statutes had been enacted in 1961—and the enforcement mechanisms that would emerge over the following decade were still being developed.
The crime itself was clear: Cooper had committed air piracy, extortion, and kidnapping. These were serious federal offenses. The FBI had jurisdiction, and the case was worked as a major federal crime from the first hours.