Editing D. B. Cooper (section)

==={{anchor|Kenneth Peter Christiansen}}Kenneth Christiansen===
In 2003, [[Minnesota]] resident Lyle Christiansen watched a television documentary about the Cooper hijacking and became convinced that his late brother Kenneth (1926–1994) was Cooper.<ref name=Gray2007/> After repeated futile attempts to convince the FBI as well as author and movie director [[Nora Ephron]] (whom he hoped would make a movie about the case), he contacted [[private investigator]] Skipp Porteous in New York City. In 2010, Porteous published a book postulating that Christiansen was the hijacker.<ref>{{cite book
| last1 = Porteous
| first1 = Skipp
| last2 = Blevins
| first2 = Robert M.
| title = Into the Blast – The True Story of D.B. Cooper
| year = 2010
| publisher = Adventure Books of Seattle
| location = Seattle, Washington
| isbn = 978-0982327180
| url = https://archive.org/details/intoblastthetrue00port
}}</ref> The next year, an episode of the [[History (American TV network)|History]] series ''[[Brad Meltzer's Decoded]]'' also summarized the circumstantial evidence linking Christiansen to the Cooper case.<ref name=BradMeltzer>{{cite episode|series=[[Brad Meltzer's Decoded]]|title=D.B. Cooper|network= [[History (U.S. TV channel)|History]]|airdate=January 6, 2011|season=1|number=6}}</ref>

Christiansen enlisted in the Army in 1944 and was trained as a paratrooper. [[World War II]] had ended by the time he was deployed in 1945, but he made occasional training jumps while stationed in Japan with [[Allied occupation of Japan|occupation forces]] during the late 1940s. After leaving the Army, he joined Northwest Orient in 1954 as a laborer stationed at Northwest Airlines' Far East stopover on Shemya Island in the Aleutians. He subsequently became a flight attendant, and then a [[purser]], based in Seattle.<ref name=Gray2007/> Christiansen was 45 years old at the time of the hijacking, but he was shorter (5&nbsp;ft 8 in or 173&nbsp;cm) and thinner (150 pounds or 68&nbsp;kg) than eyewitness descriptions of Cooper.<ref name=Gray2007/> Christiansen smoked (as did the hijacker) and displayed a fondness for bourbon (the drink Cooper had requested).{{sfn|Gray|2011b|loc=p. 118: "Kenny drank bourbon so much, he collected his own bourbon bottles."}} Stewardess Florence Schaffner told author Geoffrey Gray that photos of Christiansen fit her memory of the hijacker's appearance more closely than those of the other suspects she had been shown, but added that she could not conclusively identify him.<ref name=Gray2007/>{{sfn|Gray|2011b|pp=180–190}}

Despite the publicity generated by Porteous's book and the 2011 television documentary, the FBI maintains that Christiansen cannot be considered a [[prime suspect]].<ref name=HelpSolve/><ref name="CNN2011-08-01" /> It cites the poor match to eyewitness physical descriptions and a complete absence of direct incriminating evidence.<ref>{{cite news | title = F.B.I. rejects latest D.B. Cooper suspect | agency = Associated Press | date = October 26, 2007 | url = http://www.seattlepi.com/local/337121_dbcooper27.html | access-date = March 11, 2008 | work = Seattle Post-Intelligencer | archive-date = June 5, 2020 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20200605110108/https://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/FBI-rejects-latest-D-B-Cooper-suspect-1253715.php | url-status = live }}</ref>