Bangladesh Fighter Jet Crashes Into School, Kills19

A Bangladeshi Air Force training jet crashed into a school in Dhaka on Monday, leaving at least 19 people dead and dozens injured, marking the country’s most devastating aviation disaster in decades.

According to an AFP photographer at the scene, emergency responders rushed to evacuate wounded students on stretchers while military personnel worked to clear debris from the crash site.

The military confirmed that 19 people, including the pilot, were killed. At least 20 others sustained critical injuries.

Dhaka’s National Burn and Plastic Surgery Institute is treating 51 people—most of them students—its director Mohammad Nasir Uddin told AFP.

The accident occurred shortly after 1:00 p.m. local time (0700 GMT), just as students were leaving class at Milestone School and College. The Chinese-manufactured F-7 BGI jet plummeted onto the school’s junior playground, triggering a massive explosion.

“It felt like an earthquake,” said 18-year-old student Shafiur Rahman Shafi.

“There were two fighter jets flying overhead. Suddenly, one of them crashed. It hit the junior playground and exploded. Then the army arrived.”

Eyewitnesses described scenes of panic and chaos, with grieving family members later crowding the hospital in search of missing children.

Tofazzal Hossain, 30, broke down upon discovering that his young cousin, an eighth-grade student at the school, had been killed. “We searched every hospital. Finally, we found his body,” he said.

The interim government, led by Muhammad Yunus, declared a national day of mourning for Tuesday. In a post on social media platform X, Yunus expressed his “deep grief and sorrow”.

“The loss suffered by the Air Force; the students, parents, teachers, and staff of Milestone School and College is immeasurable,” he wrote.

“This is a moment of profound pain for the nation.”

This tragedy stands as the worst aviation accident in Bangladesh since 1984, when a flight from Chattogram to Dhaka crashed, killing all 49 people on board.

Just weeks earlier, a commercial plane crash in neighbouring India claimed 260 lives.