“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.

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.

Shahbul, father of a missing girl student, cries after a Bangladesh Air Force training aircraft crashed into a school campus shortly after takeoff in Dhaka. Source: AAP / Mahmud Hossain Opu / AP

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.