OAN Staff Abril Elfi
6:06 PM – Wednesday, July 23, 2025
Hundreds of students gathered to protest in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in South Asia, after a Bangladesh Air Force F‑7 BGI aircraft crashed into a school on Monday — killing at least 31 people, who were mostly children.
At least 31 people, including 25 children, died after a jet that was on a routine training mission crashed into the school, following its take off.
According to reports, the crash was caused by a “mechanical fault.” The aircraft suffered a mechanical failure shortly after takeoff and burst into flames upon impact.
The armed forces public relations directorate (ISPR) also announced that 165 others were left injured, many with severe burns.
On Tuesday, while police and air force personnel worked to recover parts of the wrecked plane, the crowd of protesters began shouting at officials, with several students telling CNN reporters that they believe the death toll is even higher than what was officially reported.
According to state media, the government has denied withholding information regarding the extent of the crash’s casualties. It further stated that the identities of those slain were “still being verified.”
A heroic teacher named Maherin Chowdhury reportedly re-entered the burning building multiple times, rescuing students before succumbing to her injuries — according to Reuters.
“We saw scattered parts of different bodies, of children, guardians,” Mohammad Imran Hussein, a lecturer in the school’s English department, told CNN. “I cannot express everything in words,” he said, emotionally distressed and struggling to speak.
Hussein also informed the outlet that he was in a school building across the playground when the jet crashed.
“The sound was really intolerable. And I looked around to see what happened, I saw the tail of the plane. I saw a huge flame of fire,” he added.
Milestone College has a kindergarten, an elementary school, and a high school on its campus. The building destroyed in the crash was one of about 20 structures, holding almost 100 students between the ages of six and 13.
“It’s like this building was turned into a death trap. It was horrible, totally horrible,” said Sheik Rameen, 21. “I saw a lot of children, I tried to save their lives,” he told CNN at the site. “I saw a burnt child seek help but nobody came to help them.”
The military released a statement, explaining that the plane’s pilot, Flight Lieutenant Towkir Islam, made “every effort to divert the aircraft away from densely populated areas toward a more sparsely inhabited location.”
Resident surgeon Harunur Rashid told Reuters that the majority of the crash’s injured people at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital’s burns unit are children who are under the age of 12.
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