Thread by @DavidZabinsky

He flew the King of Saudi Arabia.

Then the Rolling Stones.

And soon enough?

He was flying kilos of cocaine for a guy named Pablo Escobar.

Buckle up and get comfortable for a doozy:

The hard-to-believe, Narcos-like story of the one, the only...

Al Dellentash:

Before we take off (sorry for yet another shitty plane pun), a HUGE shoutout to Jeff Maysh who did what no man had done before:

That is:

Sit down with Al Dellentash...

Back in 2014...

To tell this story first for Narratively.

A story that starts all the way back in 1948.

Alfred Dellentash Jr. - let’s call him Al - is born in New York to a building contractor father and a pianist mother.

Al spends his school days…well, not in school.

Like, at all.

Instead?

He’s hustling and “loan sharking” unsuspecting schmucks at the local pool hall.

Yep - that’s right.

Even as a teenager, Al’s a hustler.

Making money instead of making class, as reflected in his report card that’s littered with D's and F’s.

And by age 16, Al’s saved up quite a bit of coin, amassed predominantly from activity we can describe as…

Illicit.

So what does Al do with his savings at 16, you ask?

Buy flight lessons.

Yep. You read that right.

“I spent every dollar I had buying flying time,” he says.

So Al's becoming a pilot.

And as we'll soon see:

Nothing's going to stop him from getting in the cockpit.

Nothing.

Before Al is 18, the dude is whirring around at 10,000ft above sea level.

And as he soon discovers, it's a hell of a way to pick up dates.

While his competition is driving dates to dinner like meagre mortals in things like automobiles, Al's doing it in a damn Cessna 172E.

Take one night, for example, when - in the cockpit - Al's got the clear blue sky to his left and a nervous date to his right.

"I want to land in time for the sunset," she challenges him, worried.

For Al, it's challenge accepted.

He finds a small strip of sand on the beach and makes it just in time for the dimming Long Island sky to turn orangey-pink.

“It was completely illegal,” he recounts.

"But she was very impressed.”

But Al's escapades in the air come to a screeching halt in his early 20s.

His father grounds him, if you will.

"My father arranged for me to work for a construction firm... where I sat on a crane doing nothing," Al remembers.

"I just felt trapped in his world."

So, Al does the whole suburban-house-behind-a-white-picket-fence thing.

At 23, he marries his high school sweetheart and has two kids -

The sky above him nothing but a memory.

"It tore me apart," he says.

“I had babies at home to look after and that became the priority.”

Until, of course, 1973.

Al is 25.

He can't get in the cockpit, as we know, so he does the next best thing:

Bury himself in the "Airplane Trader" magazine, fantasizing about getting behind the yoke in the latest 4- and 6-seaters the aviation industry has to offer.

But then, wincing in emotional pain at each turn of the page - longing for rudders and tachometers alike - Al comes across an opportunity:

An aircraft - offered for pennies on the dollar - hangared in Oklahoma.

For Al...

A sign.

A sign that the skies are calling his name.

Al mails in a check to the aircraft's vendor - "Flamin' Eddie" is his name - and flies to Oklahoma.

But once he gets there, he finds out Flaimin' Eddie has just been found in a bathtub.

Dead.

Al also finds out the plane is in shambles...

(And that's being rude to shambles).

So naturally, Al calls the bank in a panic to cancel the check...

Buying a wrecked plane from a dead guy?

No thank you.

But there's a problem.

The bank won't cancel the check.

Instead?

They suggest Al take a loan against the title of the airplane.

Minutes later, Al walks out with a $300,000 check - for a plane worth a fraction of that.

From there?

“I realized I was on to something,” Al says.

Al realizes he can qualify for what seem like infinite amounts of credit from the bank to buy and sell, well...

Airplanes.

So he does.

And as an airplane dealer, it's business as usual for Al, until, of course...

He buys a very certain fleet of aircraft from Sweden.

Turns out, these Swedish aircraft aren't meant to transport people...

Or freight.

They're overhead camera planes, with trapdoors at the bottom, from which the operator slips out a camera for geometric surveys.

And one of Al's customers...

Wants every single last one of them.

"I’ll buy as many of these damned trap-door planes as you can sell me!" the customer - named Lenny - tells Al.

"Should I seal the bottoms?" Al asks.

"No," Lenny says with a smile.

"I’ve got an idea.”

Lenny's idea?

Step 1: Fly to Belize

Step 2: Pick up 1,500 pounds (680 kilos) of marijuana

Step 3: Fly over Oklahoma

Step 4: Dump the haystack-like-bales of pot through the trapdoor

Step 5: Get paid a shit ton of money for being a "flying drug-runner"

Al's game.

Big time.

He leases a Cessna Skymaster 337 (his Swedish planes wouldn't stand a chance making the long trip) and takes off for Belize, only to soon after - as instructed - land on a secret airstrip in, for lack of a better phrase:

The middle of f-cking nowhere.

Things get bloody.

Quick.

One of the Belizean men working the handoff approaches Al's plane - its propeller still humming - and runs right into it.

Blood spews out of his blade-sliced face.

To put him out of his misery, a colleague shoots him.

Point blank.

With a revolver.

Al is terrified.

He sure as hell didn't sign up for this.

"It was a mess," he says...

And "a horrifying glimpse into my future."

So Al tells Lenny and his Belizean friends - with all due respect, of course...

That he'll be exiting the drug smuggling game.

For now, that is.

In the meantime, Al returns to his crime of choice:

Screwing the banks, using loan scams to buy aircraft and lease 'em out to the rich.

And Al's getting good at this.

Making money, too.

So he soon decides:

He'll start his own AIRLINE...

Exclusively for the rich and famous.

Al's first big-name client?

Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud: back then, the third in line to the Saudi throne (and today, the King).

Soon after?

Al's flying a dude named Mick Jagger.

In a motherf-cking helicopter.

Oh, and Al's piloting it himself.

Al is leveling up his fleet (and client base) by the day, it seems.

From a Cessna to a Falcon to a Learjet...

From The Grateful Dead to John Denver to The Rolling Stones.

And with this type of rolodex, of course, come the invitations.

To concerts.

And afterparties.

“I was at my happiest,” Al says.

“I was living a life other kids from New Rochelle could only dream about.”

But this life?

One a kid from New Rochelle like him could only DREAM about?

It's about to take one hell of a turn.

For better or worse, you ask?

We'll soon find out.

Al lands at Miami International after taking a God knows who to or from a God knows where.

And when he gets there, a "Steve Teri" is waiting for him, stood in front of a Lincoln town car.

“Please sit down,” this mysterious Steve tells Al.

“I need you to pick up some drugs.”

Al is skeptical.

“The propeller disaster in Belize was fresh in my mind,” he says.

But Steve's offer is too good to pass up.

$150,000 in startup money ($700,000 today) plus more after a successful smuggle.

The only twist?

The merchandise is far, far away.

It's in Pakistan.

But it doesn't matter.

Al roars up his Convair jet and sets loose for Pakistan.

Soon enough, he finds himself in Islamabad, expecting to be greeted by friendly Pakistani drug traffickers.

But friendly drug traffickers they are not.

Instead, they're angry, armed gangsters.

Like a scene from your favorite mobster movie, a mini war breaks out in the hotel lobby.

Bullets whizz by Al's ears as he ducks behind bell carts, the concierge desk, you name it.

He manages to flee, shaking his head and swearing off the drug trade.

Forever.

Or so he thinks.

Because when Al returns to New Jersey, the same strange Steve is waiting for him.

Again.

This time with a new drug mission for Al:

Colombia.

Al, still looking to get his first taste of the sweet money you could pocket after a smuggle accomplished...

Takes the gig.

This time, Al recruits his pal Lenny - you know, the one from the Belize job - to join him.

Fortunately, the pick-up in Colombia goes smooth.

No dudes walking into propellers...

Or gang shootouts in a hotel lobby.

But the landing back in the US?

Smooth?

Ha.

Anything but.

Their plane full of pot is running outta gas.

“I remember flying over the theme park in Orlando, and I could see the fairytale castle all lit up," Al says.

"I was flat out of gas with a cargo hold full of drugs.

We were gonna crash land with thousands of pounds of marijuana!"

Crash land indeed.

Humming over shards of glass in a Florida cattle farm, Steve jokes:

“Before that night I NEVER thought a cow could have an expression.”

But the plane does touch down (if you can call it that), and Steve's team rushes to the scene to collect the contraband.

But it's never that easy, is it?

Because out of nowhere...

It's an ambush.

Bullets ricochet off Al's plane in every direction.

It's the FBI.

And the DEA.

And it's Al and Lenny they're hot after.

And I gotta say man...

It's as if Al has some divine protection or something.

'Cause he escapes.

Untouched.

AGAIN!

But Steve is fuming...

First, Al leaves hash behind in a failed pick up in Pakistan.

And second?

He abandons Steve's weed in a Florida farm shootout.

So, Steve wants a word with Al.

And it ain't a pretty word -

And it's the kind of word you can have one way and one way only:

In person.

So it's then that Steve decides to, well...

Take the mask off.

"I'm not who you think I am," Steve tells Al.

"I'm Salvatore Ruggiero."

And Salvatore Ruggiero ain't just some average Joe (or Steve) off the street.

Oh not at all.

Salvatore runs one of New York's biggest drug rings...

For the infamous Gambino family.

Yes, that's right...

THE Gambino family:

The Mob. The Mafia. Whatever.

You get the point.

And because of Al's two failed missions in Pakistan and Florida, Salvatore tells him in a rage:

“I’m the most wanted man by the DEA!”

Imagine that:

Al's done pissed off a real, live mobster.

But Al doesn't get defensive.

Or scared.

Instead -

A lightbulb goes off.

And Al's licking his chops.

Because if what Salvatore is saying is true...

Then forget rockstars and Saudi sheikhs.

Because it'll be with Salvatore and the Gambino family where the REAL money is.

So Al makes Salvatore the pitch of a lifetime.

Bring me into the gang, Al says.

No, not just as a mule.

But a full-fledged member of the mob...

Jetting between Colombia and New York with coke in the cargo.

"I’ll make it like Federal Express…for drugs!” Al tells him.

But when it comes to the drug trade, Salvatore has a boss...

Not from the Gambino family.

But from Colombia.

And it's someone who will need to approve onboarding Al into the business.

And this guy?

Ooh mama...

It is someone you do NOT want to cross:

Carlos Lehder.

And Lehder's boss?

Ha.

His name is Pablo Escobar.

Al can't wait.

These are REAL, heavy-duty narcos, after all!

So Salvatore takes Al with him to meet Lehder in Miami, for an inauguration of sorts.

And Al, right away, is in awe.

"He was one of the best-looking guys I ever saw," Al recounts.

Inauguration successful.

Now, Al's no longer taking orders from some weird Steve in front of a Lincoln.

He's instead reporting to the second-in-command of the biggest cocaine cartel on planet earth.

And as you can expect, things are about to get one hell of an interesting.

Al's first mission for Lehder is to convert The Bahamas from a simple flyover island into a critical pitstop for the cartel's shipments.

Looking back, Al can't believe he even tried.

“Do you know how hard it is to corrupt an entire island!?” he laughs.

But corrupt an entire island he damn will.

With bribes, of course.

Each trip is a $30,000 payday for the Bahamian Customs and Military, who in return protect Al's plane at all times from the enemy that is the DEA.

"I basically had my own airport," Al recounts.

From 1979-1982, Al - between a hidden North Carolina coastal landing strip and The Bahamas - flies tens and tens of millions of dollars worth of Escobar's goods to the Gambinos in the US.

And the craziest part?

Al doesn't keep a low profile doing this.

No.

On the contrary.

From his days of flying rockstars around, Al launches a musician management business...

You know, 'cause flying Pablo Escobar's coke to the Gambinos ain't interesting enough.

By day, Al's a crocodile-shoe-wearing music exec, and by night...

He's a drug-running pilot.

But after a while, Salvatore has a bone to pick with Al.

First, he wants Al to focus less on music, more on drugs.

Second, he wants to get into the heroin business, flying to the likes of Thailand and Laos and Burma to pick up supply.

This causes a fight.

A big one.

Salvatore - in New York, and Al - in Florida, decide to settle their differences face-to-face.

So Salvatore hops on Al's favorite jet, N100-TA, for a quick flight from Teterboro, New Jersey to Miami with his wife.

But little do they know:

It'll be their last.

"Mayday! Mayday!" the pilot calls out.

Down goes N100-TA, somewhere off the coast of Savannah, Georgia, with Salvatore and his wife on board.

And to this day, we still have no idea how.

An FAA agent named Charles Braunstein - who's long been on Al's tail - assumes Al's dead.

After all, N100-TA is Al's plane, and it's Al who usually flies it.

To confirm his suspicions, Braunstein tries calling Al, expecting no answer.

But Al picks up.

Below, the transcript:

"I thought you were dead!" he says, shocked when Al answers.

CB: "Did you know your Learjet just crashed?"

Al: "What!?".

CB: "Your Learjet just crashed. Who was on board, Al?"

Al, nervous, makes a joke.

CB: "Who was on board, Al?"

Al gulps.

Al: "My friend Steve Teri."

Al's scared shitless.

First, he's just lied to an FAA agent...but perhaps more frighteningly:

A Gambino's just died on HIS plane.

But there's another issue -

One that could send Al to the grave.

Salvatore DID get into the heroin business...and the heroin was sitting in Al's Florida home.

So Al gets Salvatore's big brother Angelo - perhaps the most violent Gambino mobster - on the phone.

And the transcript - recorded by the FBI - is straight out of a movie:

Angelo: “This is Angelo."

Al: "It’s me. The brother’s dead."

[pause]

Angelo: “Who killed him?”

Al: "No one. He crashed in my plane this morning. I swear to God."

Angelo: "What did you say?"

...

Angelo: “Where’s the heroin?”

Al: "I don't touch heroin."

Angelo: "Listen, whoever has this heroin, I’m gonna put a shark in my pool, and I’m gonna feed that guy to a shark like a spaghetti dinner."

*Hangs up.*

Al's shaking in his boots...

Cause it's he who has the heroin.

Al knows - firsthand - the Salvatores and Gambinos don't f-ck around.

He needs to get rid of the heroin in his house.

Fast.

So when Al's old-time friend Lenny gives him a call asking for an urgent $250,000 loan, he has an idea...

Albeit a stupid-as-shit idea.

"What if I gave you a hundred and fifty [thousand], and enough heroin to hold as collateral?" Al asks.

"Perfect," Lenny says.

A few days later?

Al gets a knock on the door at his Louisiana hotel room, where he's holding the cash and heroin.

Al, relieved, thinks it's Lenny.

But it's not.

It's the Feds.

Lenny set him up...

To be caught red-handed with a bunch of dope that wasn't his.

So weeks later, Al finds himself in a Louisiana courtroom, where months and months of hearings go by.

And there's an audience, too.

"I had to stand there and give my evidence, and the courtroom was packed with wiseguys, staring straight at me," Al remembers.

One Gambino affiliate even mimes the unloading of a pump action shotgun right at him as if to say:

Snitch, and you'll be swimming with the fishes.

"How do you plea?" the old, southern judge eventually asks.

“Not guilty."

The judge sighs.

“You’re from the north, I believe?”

“Yes, sir. New Jersey.”

“Well let me explain in terms you’ll understand. Imagine you are at a barbecue,” the judge says.

"And you’re the chicken."

The chicken indeed.

Cooked to a crisp.

Because Al gets twenty-five years:

Fifteen for conspiracy to distribute heroin, and ten for possession of felony weapons.

But the chicken is released from his pen after only five years:

In 1988, Al is let go, allegedly undergoing extensive plastic surgery to conceal his identity from the Gambinos, Escobar...

And just about anyone else out for blood.

Today, or at least in 2014 at last contact, Al is a car salesman in a Los Angeles suburb.

Selling not planes, but cars...

To us meagre mortals who get around in things like automobiles.

But if there's one thing we learned from Al's story, it's this:

If he ain't up in the sky above just yet...

It's only a matter of time.

Learn something new today?

Follow me @DavidZabinsky

I’ll be telling stories like Al's - ones you’ve likely never heard before - every week.

.@jeffmaysh is a legend.

He pinned Al down in 2014 at his car dealership and got all the juice - and far more - for this story published by my friends at Narratively.

You can read the piece here (with far more detail...and far more expletives) here: narratively.com/the-man-who-go…

And be sure to follow @Narratively for more ‘hidden history’ stories just like this one.