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## Where He Landed—If He Landed
The question of where Dan Cooper came down—whether in a treetop or a river, in a clearing or on a ridge, alive or dead—has never been definitively answered.
At the time of the jump, the aircraft was somewhere over the southern part of Washington State. The FBI’s initial estimate placed the likely jump zone somewhere in the area of Lake Merwin and Ariel, Washington, in Clark and Cowlitz counties. This estimate was later revised, with some analyses pointing toward the Washougal River watershed, east of Vancouver. Still other analyses, factoring in winds, altitude, and the aircraft’s speed and heading, have suggested different areas.
The 1971 search was extensive. Army and National Guard soldiers, volunteers, and law enforcement personnel combed the woods in Clark and Cowlitz counties. An SR-71 reconnaissance aircraft made aerial photographic passes. Divers searched Lake Merwin. Nothing connected to Cooper was found.
In 1978, a deer hunter found a placard from a 727’s aft airstair door near a logging road in Cowlitz County. The placard fell within the general corridor of Flight 305’s route and was consistent with having come from the aircraft. No other physical evidence was found in the search area.
The terrain in the likely drop zones is rugged, heavily forested, and in some areas extremely remote. Pacific Northwest wilderness does not yield human remains reliably; the combination of rain, dense forest, wildlife, and the rapid breakdown of organic material in wet conditions means that a person who died in those woods might leave few or no physical traces that would survive for years.