When Dhaka’s sky became a killing field

The scent of burning jet fuel has a terrifying permanence. It sears itself into memory, a chemical ghost haunting the places where metal meets earth in catastrophic fury. On the July afternoon in 2025, as a Bangladesh Air Force F-7 BGI fighter jet screamed out of control over Uttara, that acrid stench descended upon the Milestone College campus. It mingled with the chalk dust of interrupted lessons, the ink of unfinished exams, and the horrifying, metallic tang of blood. At least 31 lives (and still counting)—students, teachers, everyday citizens—were extinguished not by war, not by natural disaster, but by a cascade of seemingly mundane, utterly preventable decisions made years, even decades, before. The wreckage cooled, the funerals were held, a day of mourning declared. Yet, the fundamental questions that tragedy screamed into Dhaka’s smog-choked sky remain, hanging heavy and unanswered: why must Dhaka’s children learn beneath the shadow of aging war machines?

Let’s be blunt. The image of a military training jet, older than most of Dhaka’s wheezing carbon monoxide gushing public buses, plunging into a schoolyard is not just a tragedy; it’s an indictment. That FT-7 BGI is a variant of Chinese-manufactured J-7 jets, which were developed using the Soviet-era MiG-21 design and first entered service globally in the late 1960s. Bangladesh acquired its F-7s, primarily from China, decades later, reportedly in 2013. Years of wear on these airframes stressed by the violent physics of supersonic flight isn’t antiquarian charm; it’s rolling the dice with lives—the pilots’ and everyone beneath their flight path.

Which brings us to the first, glaring question: why is a densely packed metropolis, groaning under the weight of over 2.4 crore souls, the designated playground for training military pilots? Kurmitola Air Base, nestled beside Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, is literally surrounded by residential areas, schools, and markets. Uttara isn’t some distant outpost; it’s a pulsing heart of the city. Every takeoff and landing, every simulated engine failure practised over these rooftops, is an exercise conducted over a human powder keg. The calculus is horrifyingly simple: mechanical failure plus urban density equals to potential catastrophe. The afternoon of July 21, 2025, proved it wasn’t just theoretical. It was a formula written in fire and grief. The pilot ejected—a testament to the training and reflexes—but the aircraft, a multi-ton meteor of failing technology, was left to find its own deadly trajectory, which it did, with devastating precision, onto a place of learning.

This isn’t merely about one aging jet. It’s about a system. It’s about why the state persists in using a civilian international airport complex, embedded deep within the urban sprawl, as a primary hub for military flight operations and training. The risks are not unknown. Experts and urban planners have repeatedly flagged the dangers of operating high-performance military aircraft over such environments. The argument often cites convenience, infrastructure, and cost. But what cost? The cost of dozens of lives? The cost of living under a constant, low-frequency dread? The cost of knowing that the roar overhead might not always be routine? Convenience becomes a grotesque euphemism when weighed against the incalculable value of human life extinguished in an instant.

And then there’s Tejgaon. Sitting closer to the city’s core, Tejgaon Airport is another anachronism etched into Dhaka’s frantic landscape. Originally a major airport, its role has significantly diminished since Shahjalal International took over commercial traffic. Yet, it persists. Helicopters, smaller fixed-wing aircraft, and VIP movements still utilise its runways. Its existence, a vast, underused 300-acre tract of incredibly valuable land locked behind fences in the heart of a suffocating city, defies logic. Why does this operational airport, a relic of a different era, still dominate prime real estate when Dhaka gasps for green lungs and public space? The roar of engines here isn’t training jets, but it is a constant reminder of priorities seemingly frozen in amber. The persistent rumours, occasionally acknowledged in official corridors, about its potential relocation or repurposing have yielded little but dust.

The questions compound, each demanding an answer louder than the last:

Why is the modernisation of the Bangladesh Air Force’s (BAF) training fleet, particularly the phasing out of geriatric F-7s, not treated with the urgency a ticking time bomb demands? While some newer platforms exist, the continued reliance on aircraft designed in the mid-20th century for missions over a 21st-century megacity is unconscionable. Every extra flight hour squeezed from these machines is a gamble. The pilots strap themselves into coffins with wings, trusting systems decades past their intended lifespan, while the city below remains an unwitting participant in this deadly game of chance.

Why are dedicated training facilities, purpose-built away from population centres, not the absolute, non-negotiable priority? Bangladesh isn’t devoid of space. Establishing modern airbases in less densely populated regions for initial flight training and high-risk manoeuvres, simulated engine failures, isn’t a luxury; it’s fundamental aviation safety and responsible urban planning rolled into one. It protects the trainees, it protects the public, and it allows for more realistic training without the sword of Damocles hanging over a schoolyard.

Where is the comprehensive, independent investigation into the systemic failures that led to the Uttara disaster, with findings made public and acted upon? While the BAF conducted its inquiry, with lightning-fast accuracy, citing “engine failure,” the broader context—the age of the fleet, the location of the base—demands scrutiny that goes beyond the immediate mechanical cause. The public deserves transparency and assurance that the root causes are being addressed, not just the symptoms of one catastrophic failure.

The victims of Uttara weren’t statistics. They were our children. They were my children. They were students with textbooks open, teachers guiding futures, people going about their lives. Their deaths are a permanent stain. But their legacy must be changed. We cannot accept the shrug of bureaucratic inertia or the whispered excuses of budget constraints. The cost of inaction is measured in blood, in terror, in burned flesh, and in the erosion of the most basic social contract: the state’s duty to protect its citizens from foreseeable harm.

Dhaka is bursting. Its air is thick, its streets choked, its people pressed together. To layer the inherent risks of military aviation, conducted with outdated equipment, onto this pressure cooker is not just poor planning; it is a form of societal negligence. The roar of an ancient jet engine over a school isn’t the sound of national security; it is the sound of rusted policy paralysis.

The arithmetic of loss from Uttara is clear. The question now is whether we, as a society, and those entrusted with power, dare to finally learn the brutal lesson. It’s time to ground the flying relics before they claim more futures. It’s time to reclaim Tejgaon for the people gasping for space and air. It’s time to move training far from the nurseries and the markets. The next roaring shadow over Dhaka’s rooftops should not be a prelude to another unspeakable headline. It should be the sound of progress, finally taking flight. Let the memorial for those dozens of souls be a city that chooses life, safety, and breathable space over deadly inertia. We owe them, and ourselves, nothing less. We plant saplings in memory; let’s uproot the policies that made their deaths possible.

Zakir Kibria is a Bangladeshi writer, policy analyst and entrepreneur based in Kathmandu. He can be reached at zk@krishikaaj.com.

Views expressed in this article are the author’s own.