Bangladesh Air Force aircraft crashes into school, 25 dead

A Bangladesh Air Force training aircraft crashed into a school in Dhaka, the country’s capital, shortly after takeoff on Monday afternoon, killing the pilot and 24 other people, most of whom were students, officials said.

The jet crashed and caught fire, leaving also 171 people, mostly students, injured. They were rescued from the school’s smoldering two-story building, officials said, many with burns, taken away in helicopters, ambulances, motorized rickshaws and the arms of firefighters and parents.

Initially, reports after the crash said 20 people died. Five died of their injuries overnight. Doctors said late Monday that the condition of about two dozen injured remained critical.

The Chinese-made F-7 BGI training aircraft experienced a “technical malfunction” moments after takeoff at 1:06 p.m. local time, and the pilot attempted to divert the plane to a less populated area before crashing into the campus of Milestone School and College, according to a statement from the military.

Many relatives waited overnight at a specialized burn hospital for bodies of their loved ones.

Around midnight, Mohammed Abdur Rahim was looking for his cousin Afia Akter in a hospital. “We could not find my cousin. She is missing. Doctors here have asked us to go to other hospitals,” he told The Associated Press.

Students said the school’s buildings trembled violently, followed by a big explosion that sent them running for safety. A desperate scene soon unfolded at the crash site, as panicked relatives searched for loved ones. Screams filled the air at a nearby hospital.

The Milestone school is located in Dhaka’s Uttara neighborhood, about an 11 kilometers (7 miles) drive from the A.K. Khandaker air force base. The school is in a densely populated area near a metro station and numerous shops and homes.

The pilot, Flight Lt. Mohammed Toukir Islam, made “every effort to divert the aircraft away from densely populated areas toward a more sparsely inhabited location,” the military said, adding that it would investigate the cause of the accident.

It is the deadliest plane crash in the Bangladeshi capital in recent memory. In 2008, another F-7 training jet crashed outside Dhaka, killing its pilot, who had ejected after he discovered a technical problem.

The government announced a national day of mourning on Tuesday, with flags to fly at half-staff across the country.