Name: Bangladesh Air Force pilot reported a mechanical fault shortly after take-off | DW News
Uploaded: 2025-07-22T17:04:34.000Z
Duration: 5 min 38 s
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At least 20 people have been killed and more than 170 injured after a plane crashed into a school in Bangladesh.

The Air Force jet went down during a training flight into a building on the school campus in the country's capital, Dhaka.

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A spokesperson for the military says the jet experienced a mechanical failure just after take-off.

The pilot tried to divert the plane from populated areas, but crashed into this two-story school, perishing alongside dozens of students in the flames.

We have two playgrounds, one for the senior students and one for the junior students.

We were in the playground for the seniors.

Suddenly, one of the two fighter planes crashed here.

It created a boom and felt like an earthquake.

Rescue efforts continued throughout the afternoon.

Helicopters airlifted the injured, many with severe burns, to local hospitals.

Many went to this medical centre for news of their loved ones, some offering to donate blood.

The first group of victims arrived with severe burns.

When we came out, we saw many students who had been burned.

On the staircases, many were rolling on the floor, trying to extinguish the flames.

Bangladeshi officials say the cause of the jet's mechanical failure is being investigated.

Tuesday will be a national day of mourning.

For the country's worst aviation accident in years.

Julian Bray is an aviation expert and he joins us from Cambridge in the UK.

The pilot reported a mechanical fault soon after take-off.

What could cause a jet to crash within mere minutes?

This is the second time that one of these F-7 BG-1s has crashed.

It's a Chinese-built trainer jet, but it is combat ready because many of them are used in African states as the main thrust of their air force.

Apparently, the pilot, who's named as Mohammed Touker Islam, tried to vector the aircraft away from the highly populated areas, but he crashed only seven miles from the airport.

The local fire brigade managed to get nine appliances, fire engines, plus crews, to the crash site.

But I hear that the latest toll is 20 dead and 171 injured.

The injured, mainly Burns, have been taken to Dakar's main Burns unit for treatment.

And a national day of mourning has been declared on Tuesday.

The pilot managed to get a message out saying he had a malfunction, but he wasn't able to eject or bail out, unlike the earlier crash in 2008, where the pilot in that case managed to eject from the aircraft.

So this is another accident in the region.

So we have to be very careful how we collect the evidence on this one to try and find out exactly what did go wrong.

This will be a military operation, of course, so the military in Bangladesh will control the investigation and hopefully we'll find out exactly what did happen in this tragic event.

You mentioned that it's not the first crash involving a Chinese-made F-7 in Bangladesh.

What can you tell us about the model's reputation and how reliant countries like Bangladesh are on them?

Well, this is quite a well-regarded training aircraft.

It's got all the attributes of a big combat jet, but smaller and more compact and easier to fly and slightly easier to fly.

It is used by a lot of African states as their main aircraft for their various air forces, so in deals that they've done with China over the years.

Now, unfortunately, things do happen, and as it's so near takeoff, this is the most dangerous time.

The pilot clearly didn't have enough time to take evasive action, because he would try to go somewhere that's deserted and try and put the plane down.

But as we hear from some reports, it came down very rapidly, crashed, and then there was a ball of flame.

So hence a lot of burns, injuries on the ground to the local population.

And so it is indeed fortunate that numbers are low, because there are many more children actually in the school.

But the emergency services managed to get a lot of them out, and the families also managed to get their children away.

So it's been a big local effort to try and mitigate this terrible disaster.