At least 16 dead after military jet crashes into school in Bangladesh

The jet crashed into the school campus minutes after taking off

At least 16 people died and dozens more were injured after a Bangladesh Air Force (BAF) training aircraft crashed into a school on Monday afternoon.

Fire and smoke were seen billowing from the English-language campus, where children were studying at the time.

“Most of those killed and injured are school students,” government spokesperson Abul Kalam Azad Majumder told The Telegraph. 

“The death toll is likely to go up,” Mr Majumder said.

“After providing primary treatment, around 60 injured were referred to the National Institute of Burn and Plastic Surgery, while 25 with minor injuries are receiving treatment here,” said Dr Bazlur Rahman, the deputy director of Uttara Adhunik Medical College Hospital.

The F-7 BGI jet took off at 1.06 pm local time (8.06am BST), officials said. 

Minutes later, the plane crashed into the Milestone College campus in Dhaka’s northern Uttara area, said brigadier general Mohammad Mahmudul Hasan, the director general of Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), a media wing of the Bangladesh Army, said.

Twenty people were taken to hospital following the crash

The pilot of the jet was also killed in the crash, said Prof Md Sayedur Rahman, who is serving as the special assistant to the chief adviser for the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Firefighters reached the scene at about 1:22pm and rescuers worked to douse the flames and evacuate the injured, officials said.

Parents and relatives of students flocked to the college campus to look for their children.

Witnesses said the plane crashed into the entrance of the two-story building of Milestone School, and that the building immediately caught fire.

Witness Mahim Hasan Siam, a student, told local media the plane crashed in front of the Project-2 building, which has 16 classrooms and four teachers rooms. 

“Classes from the first to fifth grade of primary school were held in this building,” he said. 

“The plane crashed in front of the third and fourth grade classrooms. Classes were in progress. The classwork would have finished in a few moments.”

The jet crashed into the the Milestone College campus in Dhaka’s northern Uttara area

At least one person has died and with many more injured - Al-emrun Garjon/AP

A parent, Lucky Akhter, whose two children study in the school, said he had been able to locate his elder son, but the younger one was missing. 

“We have shared his details with the police to locate him,” Mr Akhter said. 

Another parent, Ferdousi Begum, said her daughter was trapped inside. “We are unable to communicate with her,” Ms Begum said.

Muhammad Sabuj Mia, an assistant professor in the science department at Milestone College, said, “It was just after 1pm, when classes had finished and some of the students had already gone home, while others were waiting for their parents. 

“Then, out of nowhere, we heard this deafening noise. Seconds later, the plane crashed and burst into flames right near the school building. It was chaos, people were screaming, running. We couldn’t believe what we were seeing.”

While army, air force and fire services personnel are carrying out rescue operations, police and Bangladesh Border Guard (BGB) members have been deployed to maintain law and order.

A physics teacher of Milestone College told The Daily Star that he was standing near the 10-storey college building when the aircraft hit the campus. 

The plane crashed into the front side of the adjacent school building, trapping several students, he said.

The teacher said he himself carried at least one injured student out of the building and saw several other students and a female teacher with severe burn injuries.

A spokesman for the college said: “The plane all of a sudden crashed into our Diabari campus. Fire engulfed the plane and students frantically rushed to the scene.”

On May 9, a Bangladeshi Air Force pilot was killed and another was critically injured when a training aircraft crashed into the Karnaphuli River in south-eastern Chattogram. 

A mechanical malfunction was suspected in the crash of the Yak-130 jet, which caught fire before going down. The pilots ejected from the plane, but Asim Jawad, the squadron leader, died after undergoing treatment.

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