The true hijacker, of which this movie is based upon, never used the alias D.B. Cooper. Instead he used "Dan Cooper". D.B. Cooper was the name of a person the police checked out, in case the hijacker had stupidly used his own name. The media got hold of the information, that the police were checking out the rap sheet of a D.B. Cooper, and the name has stuck ever since.
In 1980, a boy found several thousand dollars in twenty dollar bills from the D.B. Cooper hijacking ransom decomposing along the Columbia River in Washington.
In 1982, original director John Frankenheimer described the film as "probably my worst ever experience. A key member in the chain of command had been lying to both management and myself with the result that we all thought we were making a different movie."
John Frankenheimer was the original director, but he was replaced by Buzz Kulik before shooting began. Well into shooting, Kulik was replaced by Roger Spottiswoode. Only Spottiswoode received on-screen credit.
Sound recordist Duncan McEwan had just taken up skydiving the previous year, and was used to create the sound effects for the skydiving scene. All of the Foley work involving the use of the parachute gear was done with his personal rig. He also made one skydive with a recorder to record the sound of parachute opening, though the recording was not used. It was used, however, on CHiPs (1977) (Bomb Run (1981)), and was added to the MGM sound effects library.