I once went 'crocodile fishing' at a croc farm in Florida. For a few bucks they'd let you dangle sausages on the end of a long strain on the end of a pole. Trust me, any croc larger than say three feet long is pretty much going to rip that pole out of your hands. We had all sizes of crocs there, and you soon learnt just how vicious and powerful even the 'little' ones were.
And so the press and there allies once again attempt to twist events to sensationalize them.
Of course crocs are vicious when
you are feeding them. 
Learning about animal behavior by studying feeding time at the zoo will give you a skewed view of all animals.
A small crocodile's natural instinct when faced with a human being is to flee. Period. Of course, an airliner is by no means a natural environment for a croc and in that situation it's behavior is unpredictable. But I still find it totally unbelievable that this small animal, even in a panic, caused 19 mature people to flip out and run screaming down the aisle. The people in Africa are not such wimps.
I am now waiting for The Sun to get a hold of this story and have a picture of a crocodile, a temple, and Indiana Jones with a headline blaring, "Pilot of African Plane Sacrificed Helpless Passengers to Avatar of Shiva". 99% of PPRUNE members would accept it as the gospel truth.
