On November 24 1971 a man known as D.B. Cooper parachuted out of a Northwest Orient Airlines 727 into a thunderstorm high above Washington State with $200,000 ransom money.

The man had earlier taken control of the aircraft shortly after it had left its departure airport. Cooper had shown one of the flight attendants what appeared to be a bomb and informed the crew he wanted the $200,000, four parachutes and ‘no’ funny stuff. The plane landed at Seattle’s International Airport and authorities there met his demands and most of the passengers were allowed to leave the plane. Cooper then demanded he be flown to Mexico at a low altitude. Once airborne the remaining crew were ordered into the cockpit. At a little after 8pm the plane was flying over the Lewis River in southwest Washington State when the drop in cabin pressure indicated Cooper had jumped from the aircraft.

He was dressed in wrap around sunglasses, a thin suit and a raincoat. He jumped into a thunderstorm with winds in excess of 100mph and temperatures well below freezing at the altitude of 10,000 feet when he began his freefall.

The storm prevented an immediate search and capture of Cooper, a later extensive search failed to find any trace of Cooper. It was believed he had not survived his apparent suicide leap.

Nine years later, an 8 year old boy found a stack of the ransom money ($5,880) in the sandy banks of the Colombia River just five miles from Vancouver, the fate of Cooper remains a mystery to this day.

In 1999 a ferry carrying over 300 passengers and 40 crew sank in the Yellow Sea off the north eastern coast of China. The ship had earlier caught fire while caught in the middle of a storm. The ship named the ‘Dashun’ was a 9,000 ton vessel and on route from the port city of Yantai in Shandong province to the north eastern city of Dalian. On the day of this disaster it was snowing and very windy, not long after it had left the port of Yantai a fire started, the exact cause is not known but it was believed to have started on the vehicle deck possibly by a ruptured gas tank.

Many of the passengers made it safely to the lifeboats, a distress signal was sent out at 4.30pm. it was believed the alarm had already been raised by a passenger using their phone in calling for help. The stormy weather delayed rescue attempts until the next morning. One crew member that survived swam the six miles to shore and safety. Many others though died of hypothermia or drowned in the freezing water. Many of those that made it to the safety of the lifeboats did not survive, they froze to death waiting for the arrival of the rescue boats. When rescuers finally arrived the next morning it was mostly for the grim task of retrieving bodies from the sea. Of all those on board the ferry that night, only 36 survived.

The fire raged on after the ship was abandoned, it was not extinguished until over 24 hours after the distress signal. The ship drifted towards the shore before sinking about a mile out to sea.