At least 19 people were killed and 164 injured as a Bangladesh air force training jet crashed into a college and school campus in the capital Dhaka on Monday after experiencing a technical problem shortly after takeoff, a military spokesperson said.

The F-7 BGI jet took off at 1:06 p.m. from the Bangladesh Air Force base in Kurmitola, Dhaka, as part of a routine training mission, but encountered a mechanical failure, said the spokesperson, Lieutenant Colonel 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-story 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.

An ambulance passes near the wreckage where an air force training aircraft crashed into Milestone College campus, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on July 21, 2025. (Mohammad Ponir Hossain/Reuters)

“When I was picking (up) my kids and went to the gate, I realized 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 neighboring 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.

Reuters contributed to this report.