Ergon Ali took a long time to die, protesting his innocence and loyalty to the end. It was dawn by the time Skender Visar got back onboard his helicopter. He was tired and preoccupied, fearing a dangerous, costly gang war and wondering who would be next to betray him. He wanted to get back to his boat. His pilot had no desire to anger him further, so he rushed through his takeoff procedures and got the Bell off the ground as fast as possible.

They were five miles out to sea when the vibrations started. The pilot’s instincts told him to turn back, but he knew Visar would not allow it, so he picked up speed, hoping to get the trip over and done with as soon as possible.

As the helicopter accelerated, air started rushing ever faster around the vertical stabilizer, bullying it from side to side. If all four assembly bolts had been solidly in place, they would have kept the stabilizer upright and motionless. But with the top assembly bolts gone, the weakened bottom bolts became a hinge around which the stabilizer started to flap. And the more the pilot piled on the speed, the more extreme the flapping became.

When the helicopter took off, there was a clearance of about a foot between the stabilizer and the tail rotor. But with each vibration that distance decreased: ten inches… six… three… closer and closer until it collided with the spinning blades in a screaming impact of metal on metal, instantly jamming the rotor like a broom handle shoved between the spokes of a bicycle wheel.

The sudden, total deceleration ripped the rotor blades away from the helicopter. The two remaining stabilizer bolts snapped like breadsticks and the entire tail assembly was sent plummeting down toward the waters of the Adriatic Sea, burnished to a gleaming copper by the rays of the rising sun.