A year on, what do the Milestone crash families still want to know?
Twelve months after a Bangladesh Air Force training jet crashed into a Dhaka school and killed dozens of people, most of them children, bereaved families are still pressing for a full account of how it happened — and why fast military jets were flying over one…
In 30 seconds
- A Bangladesh Air Force F-7 BGI training jet crashed into Milestone School and College in Uttara, Dhaka, on 21 July 2025, minutes after take-off, following what the Air Force described as a mechanical failure.
- More than thirty people were killed, most of them children, and over a hundred injured; the exact toll was publicly disputed for weeks.
- The pilot, Flight Lieutenant Toukir Islam, and a teacher, Maherin Chowdhury, who was widely reported to have helped pupils escape, were among the dead.
- Protests demanded an accurate death count and accountability from the interim government led by Muhammad Yunus, which promised an inquiry and compensation.
On 21 July 2025 a Bangladesh Air Force F-7 BGI jet — a Chinese-built trainer/fighter derived from the Soviet MiG-21 — crashed shortly after take-off into Milestone School and College in the Uttara district of Dhaka, Bangladesh's capital. More than thirty people died, most of them schoolchildren, and over a hundred were injured. The pilot, Flight Lieutenant Toukir Islam, and a teacher, Maherin Chowdhury, were among the dead. The disaster triggered street protests demanding an accurate death toll and accountability, addressed to the interim government led by chief adviser Muhammad Yunus. A year later, bereaved families are demanding full publication of the official inquiry, compensation, and changes to military flight routing over the city.
Background
The F-7 family descends from the 1950s Soviet MiG-21 and its Chinese Chengdu J-7 copy; ageing examples remain in service across several air forces and carry a long, well-documented accident record. The crash also landed at a politically raw moment in Bangladesh, under the interim administration formed after Sheikh Hasina's government fell in 2024, when public trust in official accounts was already strained.
What to do
For most readers the practical dimension is limited; for Bangladesh's diaspora communities, including in Belgium, the anniversary is a moment of mourning and of following the accountability process, while the case offers a wider reference point in debates about military flights near civilian areas.
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This story was assembled from verified evidence, with its sources and reasoning recorded as it was written.