Bangladesh declares mourning day after deadly jet crash claims 31 lives

On Tuesday, the death toll from the crash of a Bangladesh air force training jet into a school in the country’s capital rose to 31, including at least 25 students, a teacher who died from burn injuries sustained while assisting others in getting out of the burning building, and the training aircraft’s pilot.

As the military began its inquiry, firefighters further guarded the area in the crowded Uttara neighbourhood of Dhaka. The probe did not directly include the nation’s civil aviation authorities.

Tuesday was declared as a day of national mourning in Bangladesh, and all flags were flown at half-mast.

Monday’s crash at the Milestone School and College caused a fire that gutted the two-story school building. Officials said 171 people, mostly students and many with burns, were rescued and carried away in helicopters, ambulances, motorized rickshaws and in the arms of firefighters and parents.

Many say they’re haunted by the tragedy

“Yesterday, when the plane was approaching, the sound was so loud you can’t even imagine — it felt like eardrums were about to burst. Within five seconds, the plane crashed right in front of me here,” Smriti, a student who only gave one name, said outside her school.

“Suddenly, I saw flames rising fiercely upward from the building,” the 11th grader said. “When I got here, I saw some children lying with their limbs spread out, some of their lifeless bodies scattered around. Can you save them? Tell me, will they ever be able to return to their parents’ arms again,” she asked.

On Tuesday, 78 people, mostly students, remained hospitalized, said Sayeedur Rahman, a special assistant to Bangladesh’s interim leader Muhammad Yunus. Twenty deaths were reported initially, and seven died of their injuries overnight, authorities said. Another four deaths were reported later Monday, the military said.

Maherin Chowdhury, a teacher who rescued more than 20 students from the burning school, died from severe burn injuries, her colleague Tanzina Tanu said.

Doctors said late Monday that the condition of about two dozen injured remained critical. A blood donation camp has been opened at a specialized burn hospital where most of the injured were being treated.

Twenty bodies have been handed over to their families, with some of them possibly needing DNA matching after they were charred beyond recognition. Many relatives waited overnight at a specialized burn hospital for the bodies of their loved ones.

The plane reported a malfunction

The Chinese-made F-7 BGI training aircraft experienced a “technical malfunction” moments after takeoff from the A.K. Khandaker air force base at 1:06 p.m. Monday, according to a statement from the military.

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 crash.

The Milestone school, about an 11-kilometer (7-mile) drive from the air force base, is in a densely populated area near a metro station and numerous shops and homes.

It was the pilot’s first solo flight as he was completing his training course. It remained unclear if he managed to eject before the jet hit the building.

The first funeral prayers were held for the pilot in Dhaka on Tuesday morning and second prayers will be held in southwestern Rajshahi district where his parents live.

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.