On the night before Thanksgiving in 1971, Cooper hijacked Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305 - a Boeing 727 owned and operated by Northwest Orient Airlines - while it was flying from Portland ...

The hijacker, dubbed "D.B. Cooper," has remained a mystery in the 40 years since he jumped from a Northwest Orient Airlines 727 flight with $200,000 in ransom.

Northwest Airlines announced Tuesday that it has retired the last of its Boeing 727 aircraft from scheduled service. Northwest began operating the three-engine 727s in 1964 and its 727 fleet ...

Whoever boarded Northwest Orient Flight 305 in Portland on Nov. 24, 1971 -- and then parachuted out of the Boeing 727 hours later with $200,000 in ransom -- had stumped the feds once and for all time.

Cooper’s flying crime-scene was a 727 bearing serial number 18803, and registered N467US while at Northwest. It later operated as N838N with Piedmont Airlines. Source: FlightGlobal.com ...

Northwest Airlines has accelerated by one year the delivery of five Boeing 757-200s and five Airbus A319/A320 aircraft from 2002 to allow for early retirement of its Boeing 727-200s.

Its 727 fleet eventually grew to as many as 92 727s. In June 1999, Northwest announced that it would retire its 727-200 fleet and replace it with quieter, more efficient Airbus A319s and A320s.

It adopted the name “Northwest Orient” for advertising purposes. The airline’s Asian connections proved useful in 1950 when the U.S. government chose the airline for the Korean Air Lift mission.