Gabon-Zambia

Plane crash

Zambia was climbing it's way back to the African top and towards a place in the 1994 World Cup after they had lost most of their best players in a plane crash early 1993. The plane, a De Havilland Buffalo of the Zambian Airforce blew up and crashed into the sea on its way to a match in Senegal. It crashed near Libreville, the capital of Gabon.

doubts

Since the Zambian FA didn't want to spend money on commercial flights, they used old Airforce Buffalos. When the plane crashed, they were quick to blame the Gabonese and rumour had it the plane was shot down, either by rebels or the Gabon army. There was hardly any cooperation from Gabon, investigators didn't work together raising the number of speculations.
The Zambians blamed Gabon, so when Jean Fidele Diramba stepped into the field, The Zambians had no illusions about the outcome of the match.
Although Diramba was an internationally acclaimed referee, he should never have been the one to take charge of that match, it was as if FIFA had no idea at all what was going on in the mind of the Zambians.

later

Of course the Zambians blamed Diramba for their failure to reach the World Cup finals. They took to the streets shouting "Diramba is a criminal" The Zambian FA demanded a rematch, but didn't get it.

source: Ian Hawkey