Robert Wesley Rackstraw (1943–2019) was a retired pilot and ex-convict who served on an army helicopter crew and other units during the Vietnam War. He came to the attention of the Cooper task force in February 1978, after he was arrested in Iran and deported to the U.S. to face explosives possession and check kiting charges. Several months later, while released on bail, Rackstraw attempted to fake his own death by radioing a false mayday call and telling controllers that he was bailing out of a rented plane over Monterey Bay. Police later arrested him in Fullerton on an additional charge of forging federal pilot certificates; the plane he claimed to have ditched was found, repainted, in a nearby hangar. Cooper investigators noted his physical resemblance to Cooper composite sketches (although he was only 28 in 1971), military parachute training, and criminal record, but eliminated him as a suspect in 1979 after no direct evidence of his involvement could be found.