Uttara tragedy overwhelms the nation

Grief and shock benumb this nation with the Saturday's excruciating death of dozens of innocent and unsuspecting students of Milestone School and College's primary section in Uttara. Death descended out of the blue when a training fighter jet of the Bangladesh Air Force rammed into the building for primary students instantly exploding into a massive fireball that turned into an inferno when came in contact with spilled jet fuel. The fire consumed angelic young souls and left many more with burn injuries. This is a monumental tragedy without precedence in this country's history because the victims are mostly underage children. The parents and guardians of both the deceased and injured as well as the survivors of the crash are suffering the ultimate bereavement and trauma. It is inconsolable.

Now the question is, if this jet crash was avoidable or not. Aviation experts and veteran pilots are of the opinion that flights of training fighter jets in a mega city zone are a potential invitation for air crashes. Use of the same runway by commercial planes and fighter jets is undesirable too. With speed about three times that of the commercial planes which fly at speeds between 805-965 km/h, the supersonic machines also take off and land at higher speeds. Particularly, trainee pilots should not be allowed to use the runway of any busy airport. It is time such training exercises are operated from other airports less busy and away from densely-populated urban centres.                                                              

Reportedly, training fighter jets like the one involved in the crash were bought from China are too aged to be used in other countries. In fact, a number of similar crashes have taken place involving these aging planes over the past years in which the pilots in most cases died, while in one case the pilot went missing never to be found as the jet crashed in the sea. The latest one has proved the deadliest of all, claiming not only the life of the pilot but also lives of many unsuspecting victims.  One would like to believe that the Monday's crash would at least force those concerned to replace the remaining fighter jets of this gone-by generation with new ones. That is necessary not only for the sake of saving the lives of the pilots, but also to avoid collateral deaths like the ones that happened on last Monday.

Apart from such deaths, the threat posed to the lives of a pilot should be eliminated by any cost. A fleet of such old generation jets is unlikely to guard the country's airspace against any violation by enemy aircraft. Also saving the lives of pilots trained at the cost of millions of taka from the exchequer cannot be overlooked.

So, there is a need for taking a long view not only of the aircraft used for the country's air force but also of the commercial planes.  Right now Bangladesh is reportedly negotiating a deal for purchasing passenger aircraft from a much maligned company as part of reciprocal tariff bargain. This is unacceptable. Both the civil aviation and the air force must develop their fleets with advanced and well-maintained aircraft. The old ones should rigorously be checked either for use or putting them out of commission.

Meanwhile, let the nation remember and pray for those precious souls whom their near and dear ones have lost forever.