When I first read the Australian news headline that a crocodile on a plane had killed 19 passengers, I had an image of a saltie tearing apart tourists on a jetliner — which seemed not just gruesome but implausible.
What really happened was that a passenger on a domestic flight in the Democratic Republic of Congo — from the capital, Kinshasa, to the regional airport at Bandundu — had brought a crocodile on board, hidden in a large sports bag.
He had plans to sell the crocodile, but it got out of the bag, terrified the passengers, and caused a stampede — which unbalanced the small Czech-made Let L-410 Turbolet, sending it crashing down onto an empty house “just a few hundred metres from its destination.”
Welcome to Africa.