Parachute may be 1971 hijacker’s

The FBI is analyzing a torn, tangled parachute found by children to determine whether it might have been used by notorious 1971 airline hijacker D.B. Cooper, the agency said.

Children playing outside their home near Amboy found the chute’s fabric sticking up from the ground in an area where their father had been grading a road, agent Larry Carr said. They pulled it out as far as they could, then cut the parachute’s cords with scissors.

The children had seen recent media coverage of the case -- the FBI launched a publicity campaign last fall, hoping to generate tips to solve the 36-year-old mystery -- and they urged their father to call the agency.