A Bangladesh Air Force F-7 BGI training jet crashed into Milestone School and College in northern Dhaka on Monday, killing at least 20 people, most of whom were students, and injuring more than 170, officials confirmed.
The Chinese-made aircraft took off from A.K. Khandaker Air Force Base at 1:06 p.m. local time and crashed minutes later due to a mechanical failure, according to the military’s Inter-Services Public Relations Directorate (ISPR).
The pilot, identified as Flight Lieutenant Md. Toukir Islam, was among the dead.
Witnesses described a loud explosion as the jet hit the school’s two-story building in the Uttara neighborhood, a densely populated area near shops and a metro station. Footage showed black smoke rising as firefighters battled flames.
A Bangladesh Air Force F-7 BGI training jet has crashed into a Dhaka school campus in the northern Uttara neighborhood, leaving at least 20 dead.
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The F-7 BGI, a multi-role combat aircraft manufactured by China’s Chengdu Aircraft Corporation, is an upgraded version of the F-7, which is derived from the J-7—a Chinese-built version of the Soviet MiG-21, a fighter jet originally developed in the 1950s.
According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Bangladesh operates several variants of the F-7 fighter jet as part of its fleet of 87 combat-capable aircraft.
“The fact that the base model is old doesn’t inherently make it unsafe,” Jacob Parakilas of RAND Corporation told Newsweek, but he noted that such jets are “less forgiving” during takeoff and landing.
The crash is the deadliest aviation incident in Dhaka in history. In 2008, another F-7 trainer crashed near the capital. The pilot had attempted to eject after detecting a technical malfunction but was killed in the incident.
