At least 19 killed as military plane crashes into Bangladesh school campus
The F-7 BGI jet took off at 1.06 pm (08.06 BST) from the Bangladesh air force base in Kurmitola, Dhaka, as part of a routine training mission, but encountered a mechanical failure, said the military spokesperson Lt Col Sami Ud Dowla Chowdhury.
'The pilot ... made a valiant attempt to divert the aircraft away from densely populated areas. Despite his best efforts, the aircraft ... crashed into a two-storey building belonging to Milestone school and college,' he said.
The pilot was among those killed in the incident, the military said, adding that a committee had been formed to investigate its cause.
Videos of the aftermath of the crash showed a big fire near a lawn, emitting a thick plume of smoke into the sky, as crowds watched from a distance.
Firefighters sprayed water on the mangled remains of the plane, which appeared to have rammed into the side of a building, damaging iron grills and creating a gaping hole in the structure, footage filmed by Reuters showed.
'A third-grade student was brought in dead, and three others, aged 12, 14 and 40, were admitted to the hospital,' said Bidhan Sarker, the head of the burns unit at Dhaka medical college and hospital, where some victims were taken.
Images from the scene also showed people screaming and crying as others tried to comfort them.
'When I was picking [up] my kids and went to the gate, I realised something came from behind ... I heard an explosion. When I looked back, I only saw fire and smoke,' said Masud Tarik, a teacher at the school.
The incident comes a little over a month after an Air India plane crashed on top of a medical college hostel in Ahmedabad in neighbouring India, killing 241 of the 242 people onboard and 19 on the ground, making it the world's worst aviation disaster in a decade.
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