The F-7 BGI training airplane departed at 1.06 PM local time off an air base only to crash minutes later into a building of a school brimming with students and staff. Witnesses also said they saw fireballs and black smoke billowing out of the site of the crash. Students, some of them with burns, were witnessed running to save their lives as panic broke.
Immediate Response and Rescue Efforts
There were few ambulances, and Army men made extraordinary efforts to ferry injured students in rickshaw vans and other vehicles to six hospitals in Dhaka. Air Force ambulances and helicopters were also deployed to save the victims. The firefighters tried their level best to extinguish the fire and rescue the bodies out of the rubble. Flight Lieutenant Md Taukir Islam, the pilot, attempted to avoid heavily populated zones to curb death but failed to prevent the school building, as the Bangladesh Inter-Services Public Relations has confirmed.
Casualties and Injuries
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19 Dead 19
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70+ Injured
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48 very critical conditions
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One of the victims was a third-grade pupil.
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Between the ages of 12 and 40, the victims were in the range of 12 to 40 years.
Investigation
The government announced a day of state mourning on Tuesday, in reaction to the heartbreaking incident of the Bangladesh plane crash. Flags were raised at half-mast as a sign of respect to the dead. To ascertain the cause of the crash, the Bangladesh Air Force has initiated a high-level investigation into the issue. Officials are also investigating whether future training operations by the F-7 jet, which China provided, are safe.
Why This Matters?
This accident raises some issues regarding the safety of Chinese military aircraft and the danger of training flights by the air force into dense cities. The crash has attracted the wrath of many people, besides the fact that innocent school children were killed.
