What if an African plane had gone missing?

Malaysian plane               Photo: Courtesy

At the time of going to press, the Malaysian Airline Flight MH730 was still missing and a multinational search and rescue effort was ongoing as the mystery of its disappearance deepened. I can bet the response would have been very different had the incident involved an African airliner.

The stereotypical African pilot would only hijack a plane to fly it straight to a Western capital where he would then surrender himself to the police and plead for asylum, claiming his life was in danger due to his political beliefs.