William J. Smith was a WWII veteran from New Jersey who enlisted in the US Navy and volunteered for combat-air-crew training after high school. In November 2018, The Oregonian, a daily Portland newspaper, published an article proposing Smith as a suspect in the DB Cooper case. The article posited that Smith, who was 43 at the time of the hijacking, was affected by the Penn Central Transportation Company's bankruptcy in 1970 during his time as a railroad worker.
The Oreganian theorized that Smith might have carried out the hijacking due to a sudden need for money and a personal grudge against the corporate establishment after losing his pension. Smith died in 2018, and the FBI have not publicly commented on tips about his potential involvement in the Cooper hijacking.
