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A teacher in Dhaka, Bangladesh, died after heroically rescuing around 20 children from a burning school building following a fighter jet crash on Monday. Mahreen Chowdhury, a coordinator at Milestone School and College, suffered burns to nearly 100% of her body while saving students from the wreckage. She passed away later that day in the National Burn Institute’s intensive care unit.
The Bangladesh Air Force F7 jet, which experienced a mechanical failure shortly after takeoff for a training exercise at 13:00 local time (07:00 GMT), crashed into a two-storey building at the school, killing at least 31 people, including 25 children and the pilot, Flight Lieutenant Md. Taukir Islam. The disaster, the deadliest aviation incident in Bangladesh in decades, left over 160 people injured, many of them children aged 10 to 15 with jet fuel burns.
Chowdhury’s husband, Mansur Helal, recounted her final words: “I did my best to pull out about 20 to 25 people – as much as I could.” Unable to reach her by phone after the crash, Helal sent his eldest son to the school and later learned she was being rushed to a burns unit. In her final moments, she apologised to him from her hospital bed, displaying remarkable strength despite her injuries.
Chowdhury, who worked at the school for 17 years, was buried on Tuesday in her home district of Nilphamari. Bangladesh observed a day of mourning, with flags at half-mast. The crash has sparked widespread outrage, with hundreds of students protesting in Dhaka on Tuesday, demanding an accurate death toll, compensation for victims’ families, the decommissioning of outdated jets, and changes to air force training protocols. Police used tear gas and sound grenades to disperse protesters, injuring dozens.
Bangladesh’s interim government leader, Muhammad Yunus, announced the formation of an investigation committee to probe the incident. The crash follows another major aviation disaster in the region, with an Air India plane crash in India last month killing 260 people.
