Tragedy struck in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on Monday when a military training jet crashed into the Milestone School and College, killing at least 19 people and leaving dozens more injured in the country’s worst aviation disaster in decades.
According to the military, the crash claimed the lives of 19 individuals, including the pilot, and left 20 others critically injured. Most of the victims were students. An additional 51 people are receiving treatment at the National Burn and Plastic Surgery Institute, confirmed its director, Dr. Mohammad Nasir Uddin.
The aircraft involved was a Chinese-manufactured F-7 BJI fighter jet. It crashed shortly after students were dismissed at 1:00 p.m. local time, landing on the junior students’ playground and triggering a massive explosion. Eyewitnesses described the impact as “feeling like an earthquake.”
“I saw two jets flying overhead, then suddenly one nosedived and slammed into the ground. The blast was deafening,” said Shafiur Rahman Shafi, an 18-year-old student who was in the senior playground at the time.
Emergency personnel quickly responded, pulling injured students from the wreckage, while army officers assisted in clearing debris. Images from the scene showed chaos and grief, with relatives of the victims gathered in anguish at hospitals.
Among the dead was an eighth-grade student whose cousin, Tofazzal Hossain, said they had desperately searched multiple hospitals before confirming his death. “We found his body. It’s unbearable,” he said, weeping.
Bangladesh’s interim leader, Muhammad Yunus, declared a national day of mourning for Tuesday and expressed his condolences to the bereaved families. “This is a moment of profound pain for the nation,” he posted on social media.
The incident marks the deadliest crash in Bangladesh since 1984, when an aircraft en route from Chattogram to Dhaka went down, killing all 49 on board.
