Dhaka crash: 'A sound I've by no means heard

[ad_1] Soutik Biswas BBC Information, London

<img sizes="(min-width: 1280px) 50vw, (min-width: 1008px) 66vw, 96vw" srcset="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/240/cpsprodpb/470b/live/a72cd1b0-689a-11f0-8dbd-f3d32ebd3327.jpg.webp 240w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/320/cpsprodpb/470b/live/a72cd1b0-689a-11f0-8dbd-f3d32ebd3327.jpg.webp 320w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/470b/live/a72cd1b0-689a-11f0-8dbd-f3d32ebd3327.jpg.webp 480w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/470b/live/a72cd1b0-689a-11f0-8dbd-f3d32ebd3327.jpg.webp 640w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/470b/live/a72cd1b0-689a-11f0-8dbd-f3d32ebd3327.jpg.webp 800w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/cpsprodpb/470b/live/a72cd1b0-689a-11f0-8dbd-f3d32ebd3327.jpg.webp 1024w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/470b/live/a72cd1b0-689a-11f0-8dbd-f3d32ebd3327.jpg.webp 1536w" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/470b/live/a72cd1b0-689a-11f0-8dbd-f3d32ebd3327.jpg.webp" loading="eager" alt="JUBAIR BIN IQBAL/AFP/Getty Images Bangladesh's fire service and security personnel conduct a search and rescue operation after an Air Force training jet crashed into a school in Dhaka on July 21, 2025. " class="sc-d1200759-0 dvfjxj"/> JUBAIR BIN IQBAL/AFP/Getty Pictures The aircraft crashed right into a two-storey main faculty constructing in a sprawling campus

"It was like 30 or 40 thunderbolts falling from the sky," stated Ahnaf Bin Hasan, an 18-year-old scholar whose voice nonetheless trembled two days after the crash.

"I've by no means heard a sound like that in my life - it got here from the sky. In a cut up second, the fighter jet flew over my head and crashed into the college constructing."

The Bangladesh Air Drive F-7 aircraft had plummeted from the sky and slammed into the first faculty constructing of the Milestone College and School in Dhaka on Monday, marking Bangladesh's deadliest aviation catastrophe in many years.

Not less than 31 individuals had been killed - lots of them schoolchildren beneath 12 - whereas ready to be picked up, heading to teaching lessons, or grabbing a fast snack.

Clad in his chocolate brown shirt and black trousers, faculty badge pinned neatly, Ahnaf was chatting with a good friend beneath a cover on the playground of the sprawling 12-acre campus of Milestone College and School, within the busy Uttara neighbourhood. He says he was barely 30 ft away when the jet nosedived into the constructing.

Ahnaf instinctively dropped to the bottom, bracing his head together with his palms. When he opened his eyes, the world round him had modified.

"All I might see was smoke, fireplace, and darkness. Youngsters had been screaming. The whole lot was chaos," he advised the BBC on the telephone.

<img sizes="(min-width: 1280px) 50vw, (min-width: 1008px) 66vw, 96vw" srcset="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/240/cpsprodpb/9d06/live/2f792fd0-6965-11f0-8dbd-f3d32ebd3327.jpg.webp 240w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/320/cpsprodpb/9d06/live/2f792fd0-6965-11f0-8dbd-f3d32ebd3327.jpg.webp 320w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/9d06/live/2f792fd0-6965-11f0-8dbd-f3d32ebd3327.jpg.webp 480w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/9d06/live/2f792fd0-6965-11f0-8dbd-f3d32ebd3327.jpg.webp 640w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/9d06/live/2f792fd0-6965-11f0-8dbd-f3d32ebd3327.jpg.webp 800w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/cpsprodpb/9d06/live/2f792fd0-6965-11f0-8dbd-f3d32ebd3327.jpg.webp 1024w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/9d06/live/2f792fd0-6965-11f0-8dbd-f3d32ebd3327.jpg.webp 1536w" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/9d06/live/2f792fd0-6965-11f0-8dbd-f3d32ebd3327.jpg.webp" loading="lazy" alt="Ahnaf 18-year-old Ahnaf, a boy at Milestone school in Dhaka (photo supplied)" class="sc-d1200759-0 dvfjxj"/> Ahnaf Ahnaf says the screams are nonetheless in his ears

The air drive stated the jet, on a coaching flight, skilled a mechanical fault shortly after takeoff. The pilot, who ejected simply earlier than the crash, later died in hospital.

"I noticed the pilot eject," Ahnaf stated. "After the crash, I seemed up and noticed his white parachute descending. He broke via the tin roof of one other constructing. I heard he was alive after touchdown, even requested for water. A helicopter got here and took him away."

As smoke and flames unfold via the college, Ahnaf's instincts kicked in. A flaming splinter from the burning aircraft had struck his backpack, singed his trousers and scorched his hand. "It was so scorching, however I threw the bag apart and ran to assist."

He ran towards the concrete walkway separating the playground from the two-storey main faculty constructing. The aircraft had slammed into the gate, burrowed six to seven ft into the bottom, then tilted upward, crashed into the primary ground, and exploded. Two lecture rooms named Cloud and Sky had turn out to be the bottom zero of the crash.

<img sizes="(min-width: 1280px) 50vw, (min-width: 1008px) 66vw, 96vw" srcset="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/240/cpsprodpb/62f4/live/aa01c900-68ad-11f0-89ea-4d6f9851f623.jpg.webp 240w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/320/cpsprodpb/62f4/live/aa01c900-68ad-11f0-89ea-4d6f9851f623.jpg.webp 320w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/62f4/live/aa01c900-68ad-11f0-89ea-4d6f9851f623.jpg.webp 480w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/62f4/live/aa01c900-68ad-11f0-89ea-4d6f9851f623.jpg.webp 640w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/62f4/live/aa01c900-68ad-11f0-89ea-4d6f9851f623.jpg.webp 800w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/cpsprodpb/62f4/live/aa01c900-68ad-11f0-89ea-4d6f9851f623.jpg.webp 1024w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/62f4/live/aa01c900-68ad-11f0-89ea-4d6f9851f623.jpg.webp 1536w" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/62f4/live/aa01c900-68ad-11f0-89ea-4d6f9851f623.jpg.webp" loading="lazy" alt="Syed Mahamudur Rahman/NurPhoto/Getty Images A view of the crash site at Milestone School in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on July 22, 2025. " class="sc-d1200759-0 dvfjxj"/> Syed Mahamudur Rahman/NurPhoto/Getty Pictures Close to the doorway, Ahnaf noticed a scholar's physique, torn aside.

"It seemed just like the aircraft had hit him earlier than slamming into the constructing," he stated. "He was youthful than us."

The five-building campus, often buzzing with scholar chatter, had become a scene of fireside, splintered metallic, and screaming.

Amid the smoke, Ahnaf noticed a junior scholar whose pores and skin was scorched and whose physique had been pulled out of the blaze by a good friend.

"His good friend advised me, 'I can not do that alone. Are you able to assist me?' So I picked the boy up, put him on my shoulder, and carried him to the medical room."

One other lady was on fireplace. Youngsters ran from the constructing stripped to their undies, their clothes burned off, their pores and skin blistering within the intense warmth.

"On the second ground, college students had been stranded and screaming," Ahnaf stated. "We broke open a grille to succeed in one of many gates, which was on fireplace. The military and fireplace service got here in and rescued a few of them."

Ahnaf, like many others, rapidly took on roles far past his age.

"We helped management the crowds, stored individuals away from the fireplace. We cleared the roads for ambulances and helped fireplace service crews pull their pipes via the campus."

At one level, he gave the shirt off his again - actually.

"One scholar had nothing on him. I took off my uniform and gave it to him. I continued bare-bodied with the rescue."

However the weight of so many younger lives misplaced on the faculty is one thing he says shall be onerous to beat.

<img sizes="(min-width: 1280px) 50vw, (min-width: 1008px) 66vw, 96vw" srcset="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/240/cpsprodpb/37cc/live/39527450-689b-11f0-af20-030418be2ca5.jpg.webp 240w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/320/cpsprodpb/37cc/live/39527450-689b-11f0-af20-030418be2ca5.jpg.webp 320w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/37cc/live/39527450-689b-11f0-af20-030418be2ca5.jpg.webp 480w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/37cc/live/39527450-689b-11f0-af20-030418be2ca5.jpg.webp 640w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/37cc/live/39527450-689b-11f0-af20-030418be2ca5.jpg.webp 800w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/cpsprodpb/37cc/live/39527450-689b-11f0-af20-030418be2ca5.jpg.webp 1024w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/37cc/live/39527450-689b-11f0-af20-030418be2ca5.jpg.webp 1536w" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/37cc/live/39527450-689b-11f0-af20-030418be2ca5.jpg.webp" loading="lazy" alt="11-year-old Wakia Firdous Nidhi, one of the victims of the crash" class="sc-d1200759-0 dvfjxj"/> Wakia Firdous Nidhi, 11, was one of many a number of college students who died within the crash

One in all them was 11-year-old Wakia Firdous Nidhi.

She had walked to highschool that morning like some other day. When the aircraft hit, her father was at prayer - he ran barefoot from the mosque as quickly as he heard.

Her uncle, Syed Billal Hossain, advised me that the household spent the whole night time looking out greater than half a dozen hospitals.

"We walked throughout Uttara, helpless. Somebody stated six our bodies had been at one hospital. At one within the morning on Tuesday, her father recognized her - by her tooth and an issue in her eye. However we nonetheless have not been given the physique."

The ache of shedding a toddler was solely compounded by the bureaucratic maze.

Regardless of figuring out their daughter by a dental function and a lens in her eye, the household was advised the physique would not be launched with out DNA assessments - as a result of there have been a number of claimants.

First, a police report needed to be filed. Then the daddy gave blood on the army hospital. Now they had been ready for the mom's pattern to be drawn. "We all know it is her," stated Mr Hossain. "However they nonetheless will not hand over the physique."

Wakia, the youngest of three siblings, lived subsequent door to her uncle in an outdated ancestral house in Diabari. "She grew up in entrance of our eyes - taking part in on rooftops, sitting beneath the coconut tree subsequent to our home, at all times cradling her child niece. She was only a baby, and she or he cherished youngsters," stated Mr Hossain.

"I noticed her simply the day earlier than," he stated. "If not for that after-school teaching, she'd be alive."

Within the chaos and heartbreak that adopted the crash, moments of slender escape and immense braveness stood out.

One mom advised BBC Bengali how she'd given her baby cash for tiffin as a substitute of packing lunch that morning. Through the break, he stepped out to purchase meals - and unknowingly averted loss of life by mere probability. "He's alive as a result of I did not give him tiffin," she stated.

One other guardian's tragedy was unimaginable. He misplaced each his youngsters inside hours. His daughter died first. After burying her, he returned to the hospital solely to wake from a quick nap and be advised his younger son, too, had died.

<img sizes="(min-width: 1280px) 50vw, (min-width: 1008px) 66vw, 96vw" srcset="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/240/cpsprodpb/48f6/live/14986020-6878-11f0-8f9f-1d38db11c370.jpg.webp 240w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/320/cpsprodpb/48f6/live/14986020-6878-11f0-8f9f-1d38db11c370.jpg.webp 320w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/48f6/live/14986020-6878-11f0-8f9f-1d38db11c370.jpg.webp 480w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/48f6/live/14986020-6878-11f0-8f9f-1d38db11c370.jpg.webp 640w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/48f6/live/14986020-6878-11f0-8f9f-1d38db11c370.jpg.webp 800w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/cpsprodpb/48f6/live/14986020-6878-11f0-8f9f-1d38db11c370.jpg.webp 1024w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/48f6/live/14986020-6878-11f0-8f9f-1d38db11c370.jpg.webp 1536w" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/48f6/live/14986020-6878-11f0-8f9f-1d38db11c370.jpg.webp" loading="lazy" alt="NurPhoto via Getty Images Crowds of onlookers stand at the crash site of Milestone School in Dhaka, watching in silence as another plane passes overhead." class="sc-d1200759-0 dvfjxj"/> NurPhoto through Getty Pictures Fighter jets and planes regularly fly over the campus close to Dhaka airport

<img sizes="(min-width: 1280px) 50vw, (min-width: 1008px) 66vw, 96vw" srcset="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/240/cpsprodpb/6784/live/0d4dd570-6945-11f0-af20-030418be2ca5.png.webp 240w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/320/cpsprodpb/6784/live/0d4dd570-6945-11f0-af20-030418be2ca5.png.webp 320w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/6784/live/0d4dd570-6945-11f0-af20-030418be2ca5.png.webp 480w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/6784/live/0d4dd570-6945-11f0-af20-030418be2ca5.png.webp 640w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/6784/live/0d4dd570-6945-11f0-af20-030418be2ca5.png.webp 800w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/cpsprodpb/6784/live/0d4dd570-6945-11f0-af20-030418be2ca5.png.webp 1024w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/6784/live/0d4dd570-6945-11f0-af20-030418be2ca5.png.webp 1536w" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/6784/live/0d4dd570-6945-11f0-af20-030418be2ca5.png.webp" loading="lazy" alt="Map of area" class="sc-d1200759-0 dvfjxj"/> After which there was Mahreen Chowdhury . The trainer, accountable for youngsters in Lessons 3 to five, helped a minimum of 20 college students flee the inferno.

Refusing to go away, she stored going again into the flames - till her physique was burned over 80%. Chowdhury died a hero, saving the lives of these too younger to avoid wasting themselves.

For workers on the faculty, it is like dwelling in a nightmare.

"I can not perform usually anymore. Each time I have a look at the constructing, a wave of grief crashes over me. I really feel misplaced, unwell and depressed. I've misplaced three youngsters I knew - one in all them was my colleague's," stated Shafiqul Islam Tultul, a 43-year-old Bengali trainer.

Within the aftermath, questions and confusion have swirled across the scale of the tragedy.

The federal government has reported 29 deaths and greater than 100 accidents, with seven victims nonetheless unidentified. Nonetheless, the army's Inter-Providers Public Relations (ISPR) places the toll at 31.

In line with the Well being Ministry, 69 individuals had been injured within the crash and rescue efforts - together with 41 college students.

Social media has buzzed with hypothesis a couple of potential cover-up, claims the Bangladesh Armed Forces have firmly denied. In the meantime, the college's head trainer Khadija Akhter advised BBC Bengali that households have reported 5 individuals nonetheless lacking.

For the eyewitnesses and survivors, the trauma lingers.

"I have not slept for 2 days," Ahnaf says. "Each time I look outdoors, I really feel like a fighter jet is coming at me. The screams are nonetheless in my ears."

Fighter jets and industrial planes typically fly over the campus, which lies near Dhaka's worldwide airport. "We're within the flight path," Ahnaf stated.

"We're used to seeing planes overhead - however we by no means imagined one would fall from the sky and strike us."

But, the horrors of that day hang-out him relentlessly. The screams, the fireplace, and the charred our bodies of classmates and lecturers refuse to fade.