the plane to Africa was supposed to explode because of something to do with the Y2K glitch. I'm a Nas stan, but since he was a co-writer of the movie I'm going to have to assume that Y2k glitch nonsense was his idea. He seems like one of those paranoid types that would buy into all that.
So in any case, the ending was a bit thrown together because the studio wouldn't let them use the original one.