Photo by Gail Hampshire, of Wikipedia. This one is inspecting a hole in Santa Clara, Cuba.

When it comes to human deaths caused by a single animal - not species, a single individual - then the record probably goes to the Champawat Tiger that killed some 436 people in Nepal and India before she was finally shot. But she had a career spanning at least a decade - whatever wasp caused the crash of Birgenair Flight 301 killed 186 people in one go. 

The 757-200 crashed shortly after take-off from Puerto Plata's Gregorio Luperón International Airport, and the crash investigation blamed pilot error after receiving incorrect airspeed information from one of the pitot tubes, which investigators believe was blocked by a wasp nest built inside it. The aircraft had been sitting unused for 20 days, and without pitot tube covers in place for the 2 days before the crash. It’s not known exactly which species of wasp was responsible, but there’s a number of possible Sphecid and Vespid wasps that would happily build a mud nest inside any suitable hole. 

So it’s rather distressing that the wasps have caused multiple aircraft emergencies at Brisbane airport, including one in 2018 where somebody forgot to take the anti-wasp covers off. Brisbane airport has a major ongoing problem with the Keyhole Wasp  Pachodynerus nasidens, which as the name suggests just LOOOOVES building her cells inside manmade cavities.