Milestone School tragedy: Father injured while picking son from school, admitted to hospital

Surjo Somoy, a student of Uttara’s Milestone School and College (English version), narrowly escaped death when a Bangladesh Air Force training aircraft crashed into a two-storey school building on Monday afternoon.

Class was supposed to end around 1:00 pm. Surjo’s father, Mukul Hossain, had arrived at the school premises to pick him up. At that very moment, the fighter jet came crashing down, striking the building and igniting a massive fire. Mukul, who was nearby, was injured in the incident.

He is currently being treated at Uttara Modern Medical College Hospital with a serious chest injury. A wing fragment from the aircraft reportedly hit him directly. Mukul is the area manager for BRAC in Sierra Leone.

His wife, Sharmin Islam, a biology lecturer at the same branch of Milestone College, was teaching in a nearby building when the crash occurred.

Speaking to Prothom Alo late last night, Sharmin recounted the terrifying moment: “There was a sudden, deafening sound. None of us imagined it was a plane crash. We ran downstairs and saw smoke and flames everywhere.”

Sharmin said she saw that the aircraft had hit the building where her son’s class was being held. She soon found Mukul, badly injured and bleeding from the chest.

“We were completely disoriented. There was fire near the main gate, so rescuers had to cut the side grills to evacuate the children. Many of them were badly burned,” she said.

Amid the chaos, an unknown number appeared on Sharmin’s phone. It was Surjo. “He said he was okay. He had been in the Bangla medium building,” she recalled.

Eventually, Sharmin found her son. His hair had been singed, and his right hand was slightly burned. Seeing his parents, Surjo hugged them tightly and cried out, “I am alive—are you alive?”

Surjo was released after receiving first aid. But the emotional trauma remains. “Our entire family is devastated and terrified,” Sharmin said.

So far, 27 people have been confirmed dead in the crash, with more than 150 injured. The government has declared a day of national mourning in memory of the victims.