One Year After Bangladesh Air Force Jet Killed 36 at Dhaka School, Government Still Hasn't Released Its Own Investigation

A Bangladesh Air Force F-7 BGI training jet took off from a Dhaka air base around 1 p.m. local time on July 21, 2025, and crashed minutes later into Milestone School and College in the Uttara neighborhood. Thirty-six people died, most of them children. More than 160 were injured. It was the deadliest aviation disaster Bangladesh had seen in decades, according to the BBC.

One year later, families gathered at a Dhaka hospital on Tuesday to mark the anniversary. Many are still waiting for basic answers from their own government.

Sixth-grader Nure Jannat Yusha was at school that day. She survived. She told BBC Bengali she still can't sleep. "Even now, if I go to school and see a plane, I feel afraid," she said. "In my dreams, someone is throwing me into the fire." Her mother, Yasin Akter, said Yusha once dreamed of becoming a dancer. That dream is gone. "My daughter screams all day and is afraid," Akter said. "Earlier she was interested in studies. Now she does not want to study any more."

The government sat on its own report for eight months

Bangladeshi authorities formed an investigation commission almost immediately after the crash. Student protesters didn't wait for it. Within days, hundreds took to the streets, clashing with police and demanding accountability and changes to military training-flight rules over populated areas, according to the BBC.

The commission reportedly finished its work and submitted findings to the government last November. As of this week, one year after the crash, those findings have not been made public.

A leaked copy contradicts the military's own story

BBC Bengali says it obtained a copy of the full report. It contradicts what the Bangladesh Armed Forces initially told the public.

Right after the crash, the military said the jet suffered a mechanical fault. The commission's findings say otherwise: no technical fault with the aircraft. Instead, the report reportedly found the pilot lacked sufficient flight training and adequate ground supervision.

If accurate, this is a direct conflict between the official cause and the military's first public explanation. The Bangladesh Armed Forces did not respond to a request for comment from the BBC.

Was the "mechanical fault" claim an honest early assessment that later turned out wrong, or a deflection issued before anyone had the facts? Bangladesh's government hasn't answered that, and won't as long as the full report stays sealed. Families are owed that distinction, and right now they don't have it.

A building-code problem nobody's fixed

The leaked report reportedly flagged more than 600 buildings, including schools and hospitals, near Dhaka's international airport that violate height restrictions. Milestone School and College itself was reportedly out of compliance with building codes.

That's a second failure layered on top of the first. Even if the pilot had been perfectly trained, a school built in violation of aviation safety zoning near an active airport corridor is a standing hazard. Mansur Helal, whose wife died in the crash, put it bluntly to the BBC: "No one can give a guarantee that another plane will not fall onto this school in the future."

That's not an exaggeration. It's a direct consequence of unenforced building codes sitting next to unresolved training-flight risk.

Where this stands

The reporting available makes clear what happened, when it happened, and what the leaked investigation reportedly found. No timeline for public release has been announced. No explanation from Bangladesh's government for the delay appears in the record. No indication the more than 600 non-compliant buildings near the airport are being brought into compliance. No confirmation from the Armed Forces addressing the discrepancy between their initial mechanical-fault claim and the commission's finding of pilot training failures.

Families like Helal's and students like Yusha aren't asking for sympathy. They're asking for the report. A government that ordered an investigation, received its findings, and then buried them for the better part of a year owns the silence that follows. Until Dhaka releases the full findings, the only account the public has is the one that leaked, not the one the state was willing to give them.