First flight of Boeing 727 jet

The 727 was the little cousin to its successor, the 747. Designed along the same lines as the existing Boeing 707 model, the trijet was intended to take off from shorter runways and operate on medium-range routes where the large passenger jets were too big and the older turboprop planes were too slow. It was also Boeing’s flagship model for many a decade, cementing the company’s dominance in air travel in just about every country that counted.

On this day, February 9, in 1963, the first prototype 727 made its maiden flight from Renton Airport in Washington, site of Boeing’s main manufacturing facility. It would enter commercial service the following year.

For a brief moment, the 727 model’s claim to fame was as an accessory to a crime. In 1971, a man who identified himself as Dan Cooper (more commonly, but incorrectly, known as D.B. Cooper) hijacked a Northwest Orient Airlines flight operating a 727-100. After collecting a $200,000 ransom for the passengers, the 727, with only the pilots and Cooper left on board, went back in the air. Somewhere between Seattle and Reno, Nevada, Cooper deployed a stairway in the aft section of the plane and parachuted off, never to be found.