Raymond Sidney Russell Was Interviewed In 1972 But Later Disregarded A Western Maine pilot was once a possible suspect in the long-unsolved D.B. Cooper hijacking case, according to newly released FBI files. The files indicate that Raymond Sidney Russell, who also went by R. Sid Russell and Sid Russell, was interviewed by the bureau in 1972 as part of its efforts to identify the man who hijacked a Northwest Orient Airlines flight in November 1971, collected $200,000 in ransom and parachuted from the plane somewhere over the Pacific Northwest. The hijacker was never caught, and the case remains one of the FBI’s most infamous unsolved mysteries. The FBI files do not make clear how Russell, who died in 1989, originally drew its attention, but the files show the agency investigated his background and spoke with several people who knew him, some of whom told the bureau they thought he could’ve committed the crime and others who didn’t think he was capable of it. The section on Russell takes up 30 pages of the tens of thousands released so far by the bureau.
