Who killed my child?
Who killed my child?

Did you know that this is not the first time a Bangladeshi fighter jet or a training jet was subject to a technical malfunction, that too in a densely populated area? Over the years there have been numerous incidents where pilots were forced to eject or lose their lives in order to divert the plane’s trajectory away from populated places, but this time Flight Lieutenant Mohammed Towkir Islam’s every effort to steer the plane away failed, killing him and our innocent babies.
This is not an isolated incident; there was always ample risk and enough instances that warned us of the dangers of training young pilots in aircraft in the midst of populated cities. And thus, any excuse to dub this as just an ‘accident’ should not be accepted. It is time to raise our voices, louder than ever, and challenge the over-bloated influence of the armed bureaucracy and its negligence.
A history of ignorance
On 8 June 2005, a similar incident occurred when a training flight of a Bangladeshi fighter trainee pilot of Bangladesh Air Force (BAF) crashed into a neighbourhood on the outskirts of the capital, killing one person and injuring four others.
On 11 July 2017, a BAF Yak‑130 training aircraft crashed in Faridghona, Lohagara (Chattogram Division), after taking off from BAF Base Zahurul Haque. Both pilots ejected safely and were unharmed, but the wreckage fell in the populated lychee farm areas.
On 27 December 2017, two training jets crashed in different locations on Maheshkhali Island. Debris fell near villages, and at least one house was damaged; seven civilians were injured in panic and from fleeing the scene.
Seven years later, another incident occurred on 9 May 2024, a Yak‑130 caught fire and crashed into the Karnaphuli River near Patenga, a densely populated area. Both pilots ejected; one died later. According to ISPR, the pilots “steered the aircraft away from densely populated areas into sparsely populated ones” before impact.
All of these accidents have one thing in common, yet this commonality is suspiciously ignored; in all instances, the pilot tried his best in getting the plane out of the populated areas, but the effort, in most cases, proved to be injurious for the pilot himself. This leads to one simple question: why was the trainee flying over a populated area in the first place?
In all the subsequent investigations, this question may have been answered, but it is impossible to know because none of the reports have ever been made public.
However, this is a crucial question because almost all other nations have strict regulations regarding where and when a training flight can be operated, and there are specific guidelines to avoid dense areas. In the United States, the Department of Defense (DoD) and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) categorise special Military Training Routes (MTRs). MTRs are defined corridors specifically for low-altitude, high-speed flight training. The FAA has a fully visible and accessible chart of these flight paths available (https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/flight_info/aeronav/digital_products/vfr/) for anyone toobserve,e and it is specifically established to avoid any sort of civilian populated areas. Strict federal zoning laws also ensure that no civilian infrastructure is ever constructed in interference with the MTRs.
In Germany, Military Training Areas (Militärische Luftfahrtübungsgebiete) are predefined and cleared of dense population. The German Air Traffic Act (LuftVG) and Air Traffic Regulation (LuftVO §20 and §27) fully disclose their military training facilities and also have strict laws that make sure pilots do not divert from the paths predetermined to be far away from any small towns or cities.
In Japan, No-fly zones over Tokyo and major cities are observed strictly. Japanese MOD and U.S. Forces coordinate via Joint Committee Agreements to ensure training flights avoid cities and critical areas.
All these examples are meant to highlight the obvious nature of strict restrictions regarding where any military training flights can take place. It is a matter of common sense that no militarytraining,g let alone any aviationtraining,g can take place in close proximity to any populated area.
If this is obvious, then how in the world can we, a so-called ‘civilised’ country, keep witnessing flights taking off and landing in the heart of Dhaka, Tejagon, and not question the validity of such an act? There can never be a man so blind who has hardly dared to look at the facts.
In researching for the article, the question of similar zoning laws of BAF was not searched for, because even if there is a law, it is clearly not being followed, so what difference would it make?
Why we never learn
The instances of crashes mentioned above were all dealt with by “serious” investigations. High-ranking officers as well as bureaucrats were tasked with finding out what exactly went wrong.
Maybe that is why the public never really found out what was actually wrong as it probably got lost. The culture of short-term memory loss disguised the true efforts of the vast numbers of investigative committees.
The role of the government and the civil-military bureaucracy are both to be blamed for not taking any actions to truly mitigate these instances. There is no public record of a formal policy, legal prohibition or any discussion explicitly forbidding training flights over urban centres, which begs the question: what was the point of such investigative committees in the first place?
Unknowingly causing any harm may be termed as ‘accidents’, but knowingly ignoring a hazard cannot be met with such excuses; in some countries such negligence is deemed as third-degree murder. However, in this nation, this kind of strict language is frowned upon, as it hurts the feelings of many “brave” officers and policymakers.
Who killed our children?
As the government will not take on the blame with their ready-made apolitical excuse of “not being able to fix 50 years of bad governance”, and the military are as free as ever to boast about doing foreign missions while not having or following rudimentary guidelines back home, it seems the only people to blame are you and me.
It is us who continuously let the elite dictate our lives with subpar policymaking and bad governance. It is us who forget time and time again our inalienable rights to be free citizens in a country that is supposed to protect us and consequently not land a plane on our schools.
Therefore, do not fall for any sad condolence messages from our so-called Chiefs. Demand answers; ask the tough questions. Maybe next time you find yourself in front of the BAF Chief, ask him, What is his role? Why doesn’t the BAF have fixed Military Training Routes (MTRs)? Why do they park planes in the heart of the second most densely populated city in the world? And, if that Chief with all his medals of false bravado doesn’t answer, make sure to call out his bluff, as you are the owner of your destiny and this nation; he is nothing but an employee of the state.
The jet fuel that burned our children was bought using your tax money, so by staying silent, you are the ones who have killed our children.