At least 19 killed as Bangladesh fighter jet crashes into school

At least 19 people, mostly students, were killed on Monday when a training aircraft of the Bangladesh Air Force crashed into a school campus in the capital Dhaka, the government said.

More than 100 people were also injured in the accident, with at least 83 undergoing treatment in several hospitals, the office of interim leader Muhammad Yunus said.

The Chinese-made F-7 BJI aircraft took off at 1:06pm local time and crashed soon after at the Milestone School and College campus.

An AFP photographer at the scene saw fire and rescue officials taking away the injured students on stretchers.

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, Reuters TV visuals showed.

Yunus expressed "deep grief and sorrow" over the incident in a post on X.

"The loss suffered by the Air Force, the students, parents, teachers, and staff of Milestone School and College, as well as others affected by this accident, is irreparable," he said.

"This is a moment of profound pain for the nation."

He added that "necessary measures" would be taken to investigate the cause of the accident and "ensure all kinds of assistance".

The incident comes a little over a month after an Air India plane crashed on top of a medical college hostel in neighbouring India's Ahmedabad city, killing 241 of the 242 people on board and 19 on the ground, marking the world's worst aviation disaster in a decade.