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Daily Mail
14 hours ago
- General
- Daily Mail
Horrifying new video showing Black Hawk's deadly mid-air crash with American Airlines jet is played at hearing as final words of chopper pilot are revealed
A horrifying video showing the moment a US Army Black Hawk helicopter smashed into a passenger jet over Washington, DC, has been released, as investigators reveal the final words of the doomed crew. The footage, captured by CCTV and played at the start of a three-day National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) hearing, shows a bright flash lighting up the night sky above the Potomac River. Seconds earlier, the military chopper had collided with American Airlines Flight 5342 as it descended into Reagan National Airport. The Bombardier CRJ700 had been flying from Wichita, Kansas, on January 29 and was just minutes from landing when it was hit. All 67 people on board the two aircraft were killed, including 63 passengers and crew on the jet and four helicopter crew members, marking the deadliest US airline crash in more than two decades. The Black Hawk, operating as Priority Air Transport 25, had been on a low-level training mission and was flying back to Fort Belvoir in Virginia. Investigators now believe the crew thought they were flying 100 feet higher than they actually were due to faulty altimeter readings. The NTSB revealed that about three minutes before the crash, Chief Warrant Officer Andrew Eaves told co-pilot Capt. Rebecca Lobach to 'come down for me' and fly at 200 feet because they were currently at 300 feet. The footage was captured by CCTV and played at the start of a three-day National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) hearing All 67 people on board the two aircraft were killed, including 63 passengers and crew on the jet and four helicopter crew members The route down the river on which the chopper was on has a maximum altitude of 200 feet near the airport, according to the NTSB's presentation. Two minutes before impact, air traffic control warned them about the approaching passenger plane. A second warning followed 90 seconds later. In both times, the helicopter crew told controllers they could see the jet and asked for 'visual separation' to allow them to navigate around the flight. The controller also told the helicopter to pass behind the passenger plane, but that instruction was not heard by the crew. Twenty seconds before the crash, Eaves said: 'Alright, kinda come left for me ma'am, I think that's why he's asking.' Lobach replied: 'Sure.' Eaves added: 'We're kinda out towards the middle.' Lobach responded: 'Okay fine.' The helicopter and the jet collided at 8:48pm, causing a bright fiery flash in the night sky. Meanwhile, in the American Airlines cockpit, the pilots used expletives when they saw the impending crash and attempted to pull the plane up just seconds before. NTSB investigators later carried out test flights using three similar helicopters over the Potomac. They found that downwash from the rotor blades consistently interfered with barometric altimeter readings, making it appear they were higher than they really were. The board also heard the Black Hawk crew had been suffering from burnout, raising fresh concerns about their decision-making on the night of the crash. Air traffic controllers have also come under scrutiny following reports that there were staffing problems at the airport on the day of the crash. Thousands of pages of records have now been made publicly available as part of the investigations.
CNN
2 days ago
- General
- CNN
They lost their son in the Reagan National Airport midair collision. Now, they're fighting for aviation safety in his honor
January 29 started with such promise. Sheri Lilley visited a wedding venue in Savannah, Georgia, where her stepson Sam and his fiancee Lydia Coles were looking to get married. The date was already set: October 4, 2025. Sheri thought to herself, 'This is so fortunate. This place is perfect. It's going to work out great.' Sam was a commercial airline pilot on a trip, so Sheri asked Lydia to talk with him about the venue when he got back to their home in Charlotte. But several hours later their lives were shattered when a passenger plane collided with a Black Hawk helicopter flying over the Potomac River. Texts and calls went unanswered. No word from Sam. Sam's father, Tim, who is also a pilot, joined Sheri and Lydia on a group phone call. Everyone was in tears. They knew, even without official confirmation, something horrible had happened. 'I uttered the words to (Lydia), 'A plane has crashed in DC. We think it was Sam,'' Sheri said, still haunted by that night. Twenty-eight-year-old Sam Lilley died in January's midair collision, the deadliest plane crash in the US in 24 years. He was the first officer flying the CRJ-700 for PSA Airways, a regional carrier for American Airlines. Sixty-four people were onboard, including Sam and Captain Jonathan Campos. Three soldiers onboard the Army helicopter were also killed. That cold, devastating night would change the Lilley's lives forever. When Tim and Sheri share their story, there are no longer many tears. They've shed so many in the six months since January 29 and dealt with the trauma as parents and a couple. It's an unthinkable situation that would test any marriage. The couple agrees they were able to get through it because of their faith. 'It takes some of the sting of death away for me, because I know when I move on, I'm going to have a chance to interact with Sam and other family members that I've lost on the way,' Tim said. The night of the crash Tim and his family went straight to Washington. He was no stranger to aviation or crash investigations. A former active-duty Army Black Hawk helicopter pilot himself, he flew in combat on four tours, conducted accident investigations while on active duty, and worked for almost 16 years as an emergency medical pilot. Now, he understood more about the investigation when it was his family involved. The first time Tim walked into a conference room where victim's families were meeting with the National Transportation Safety Board, the agency responsible for investigating his son's crash, he brought an iPad loaded with helicopter routes and airplane flight paths. Tim had a lot of questions. He wanted to know what happened to his son and why. The quest for answers was a coping mechanism, but it didn't stop the traumatizing breakdowns and cries. Tim didn't sleep for the first few nights after the accident. Despite being a former Army man, he was a father yearning for his son. 'Within 12 hours of the accident, I had a very strong instinct of everything that had happened and everything that went wrong, and all those instincts turned out to be true,' Tim said. 'I was kind of the voice of the family members that understood the aviation side of this tragedy.' Tim often talked to the media, with his wife by his side, speaking for the victims' families when so many of them could not fathom what had happened. Tim and Sheri recall those initial meetings with the NTSB as 'terrible,' but a time when families bonded over shared trauma. In a conference room, there were 200 or so people, including representatives from American Airlines, PSA Airways, the Federal Aviation Administration, NTSB and first responders. Conspicuously absent during those first few days was the Army, according to the Lilley's. 'The NTSB - they are so professional,' Sheri, who spent 15 years working at Gulfstream Aerospace, said. 'They're outstanding at what they do. We have so much respect for them, but I think they probably could have briefed some of those other parties a little bit better about the fact that you are not talking to law enforcement, first responders. This is an audience of grieving and shocked family members.' People left the room in horror when officials described 'body parts spread all over the ice.' Families passed notes to the front of the conference room telling officials that night to not refer to their loved ones as 'remains.' Shocked and trying to grieve, the Lilley's still pressed for answers. The couple wanted to make sure this never happened again. Without answers, the questions would keep them awake at night. But it was a different kind of answer that woke Tim up early one morning in February. About a week after the accident, he knew Sam wanted him to get a tattoo. Tim and Sheri never were tattoo people, they say, but Sam had six. The next day, Tim, Sheri and Lydia, all went to get tattoos in Sam's honor at Raven's Tattoo Shop in Bethesda, Maryland. For Tim, it was a plane with a ribbon across it, remembering the crash. Sheri and Lydia got lily flowers. It was clear the Lilley family wasn't going to be out of the spotlight for quite some time. Tim's first national media interview was with NewsNation on January 31 with Chris Cuomo. In the video, his hands are crossed, he is fidgeting and fighting back tears, but he told his son's story. The day before, he spoke with a few local Atlanta TV stations. At that point, hundreds of media requests started pouring in and a friend of Sheri, Amy Camp, started acting as their press representative. About four days after the crash, Tim turned to Sheri and said, 'I want to go to Capitol Hill. I need to speak to some senators.' Camp was able to connect the couple with a lobbyist in Washington who ultimately opened doors for them to meet lawmakers. Just a few days after the crash, Tim and Sheri were in the offices of Senators Ted Cruz, Maria Cantwell, Roger Marshall and Tammy Duckworth, who was also an Army Black Hawk pilot and traded stories with Tim. The couple also met with Rep. Buddy Carter, from their home congressional district in Georgia, who had Sam's photograph enlarged and placed on an easel on the floor of the House of Representatives. 'A touching moment,' Sheri said. 'All three of us caught our breath.' On March 6, they spoke with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who was sworn in by Judge Clarence Thomas on the afternoon of January 28, just one day before the crash. The Lilley's were happy with the Secretary's response to the crash. They appreciated his effort to address what had happened to their son and were glad the tragedy brought heightened attention to aviation safety. 'It kind of lit a fire,' Tim said. The couple knew their voices could help keep anyone else from losing their child to a tragedy like this one. 'We've got a little bit of a platform here, and this is a way that we can honor Sam,' Sheri said. 'It's also been very healing for us to feel like we may contribute to preventing disasters like this, saving other lives. That at least helped us make some sense of this whole tragedy.' The NTSB investigation into the crash will continue for about another six months but in the meantime, the couple is going to push to make aviation safer in other ways. Fighting for funding for a new air traffic control system is one of their current goals. Nine days after the crash, Sheri and Tim finally went home to Savannah. American Airlines would later provide an aircraft for their son's final trip home. It was an Airbus plane, because the CRJ regional jet Sam flew wasn't large enough to carry a casket in the cargo hold, Tim said. When the plane landed Sam was honored with a water canon salute, and dozens of pilots, including other first officers and young aviators, stood in uniform to greet him. One stood out to Tim – she told him, as he shook her hand, she wouldn't be a pilot if it weren't for Sam. He was her flight instructor and took her on her first lesson. Sam's graveside service was private, but about 500 people attended his public memorial in person, and it was livestreamed. In mid-May, Tim and Sheri went back to the site of the crash to lay a wreath in the water. The Washington DC Harbor Patrol took the couple out in a boat to the exact spot where the plane went down. What they didn't know was they'd be with the first responders who pulled their son out of the water. 'They volunteered to go with us because they felt like they already had a personal connection to us, and they kind of wanted to close that loop,' Sheri said. 'It was a very beautiful moment on the river with them.' It's been six months since Sam died. Tim and Sheri have been to Capitol Hill six times since the crash for hearings and meetings with lawmakers and have reviewed legislation. Often, they are acknowledged in the audience at the start of committee hearings. They don't plan to stop. On Tuesday, they returned to Capitol Hill to help introduce new aviation safety legislation written by Sen. Cruz and supported by the FAA, NTSB, Department of Transportation and other lawmakers. They'll also be at all three days of NTSB investigative hearings at the end of July in Washington. While they want people to remember their son, they also want accountability. Up until this point, Tim and Sheri feel like they have heard from all parties involved, but not much from the Army. 'I feel betrayed,' Tim said. 'I'll be honest with you.' In July, family members of the victims wrote a letter to the Secretary of the Army calling out the Army's refusal to engage with them. On Tuesday, after a private update from the NTSB, the families met with the Army. 'The most disappointing part from the Army's perspective is the reaction to it,' Tim said. 'They've taken the position to hide behind the NTSB and say, 'We can't really do anything or say anything until the final report.' That's just crazy.' While a probable cause of the crash has yet to be determined by the NTSB, the couple does believe the crew aboard the Army Black Hawk were at fault. 'While I do say that they made some mistakes and caused the accident, I'm not going to hold that in my heart, I have to let that go,' Tim said. The couple also reached out to the parents of crew chief Ryan O'Hara, who was in the helicopter on a training mission that fateful night. 'Our hearts really broke for them,' Sheri said, noting O'Hara was Sam's age and had a child. 'They didn't get that support like we got. Social media rallied around us.' To this day, Sheri said, six or seven of the victims of the crash haven't been publicly identified. There's a Flight 5342 Slack channel that shares birthdays and anniversaries of their loved ones. Sheri said May was a hard month full of celebrations that never happened. 'As a pilot, you bear this responsibility to get people safely where they're supposed to go,' Tim said. 'They expected them to get there and they were almost there. It's just heartbreaking.' October 4 will still be celebrated between Tim, Sheri, and Lydia. Plans haven't been finalized, but they know they'll take a trip somewhere to memorialize Sam and what would have been the day he and Lydia were married. Sam met Lydia at a church camp when they were 14 and were really close friends, but she was dating a friend of his at the time. Over the years, they reconnected. About two and a half years ago, on St. Patrick's Day, Sam 'accidentally' introduced his parents to Lydia, after engaging in holiday 'liquid celebrations,' Sheri said laughing. Very quickly, Tim and Sheri saw exactly what their son saw in Lydia. 'She has so much emotional maturity, she really brought out the best in him,' Sheri said. 'They brought out the best in each other.' Last October, just east of Dublin, Ireland, Sam got down on one knee with an emerald ring in hand and asked Lydia to be his wife. In July, Tim, Sheri and Lydia went to Ireland and she showed them where Sam proposed. That spot felt sacred to Sheri – where Sam felt one of the most joyful moments of his life. The three also sat down at a seafood tapas restaurant Sam and Lydia had gone to after she said 'yes.' When their server put their food down, Sheri noticed an airplane tattoo on the server's arm. 'My eyes just filled with tears,' Sherri said. It's those little moments that let them know whether on Capitol Hill, at home in Savanah or deep in Ireland, Sam will be with them forever.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
A sound I've never heard in my life - then the jet flew over my head
"It was like 30 or 40 thunderbolts falling from the sky," said Ahnaf Bin Hasan, an 18-year-old student whose voice still trembled two days after the crash. "I've never heard a sound like that in my life - it came from the sky. In a split second, the fighter jet flew over my head and crashed into the school building." The Bangladesh Air Force F-7 plane had plummeted from the sky and slammed into the primary school building of the Milestone School and College in Dhaka on Monday, marking Bangladesh's deadliest aviation disaster in decades. At least 31 people were killed - many of them schoolchildren under 12 - while waiting to be picked up, heading to coaching classes, or grabbing a quick snack. Clad in his chocolate brown shirt and black trousers, school badge pinned neatly, Ahnaf was chatting with a friend under a canopy on the playground of the sprawling 12-acre campus of Milestone School and College, in the busy Uttara neighbourhood. He says he was barely 30 feet away when the jet nosedived into the building. Ahnaf instinctively dropped to the ground, bracing his head with his hands. When he opened his eyes, the world around him had changed. "All I could see was smoke, fire, and darkness. Children were screaming. Everything was chaos," he told the BBC on the phone. The air force said the jet, on a training flight, experienced a mechanical fault shortly after takeoff. The pilot, who ejected just before the crash, later died in hospital. "I saw the pilot eject," Ahnaf said. "After the crash, I looked up and saw his white parachute descending. He broke through the tin roof of another building. I heard he was alive after landing, even asked for water. A helicopter came and took him away." As smoke and flames spread through the school, Ahnaf's instincts kicked in. A flaming splinter from the burning plane had struck his backpack, singed his trousers and scorched his hand. "It was so hot, but I threw the bag aside and ran to help." He ran toward the concrete walkway separating the playground from the two-storey primary school building. The plane had slammed into the gate, burrowed six to seven feet into the ground, then tilted upward, crashed into the first floor, and exploded. Two classrooms named Cloud and Sky had become the ground zero of the crash. Near the entrance, Ahnaf saw a student's body, torn apart. "It looked like the plane had hit him before slamming into the building," he said. "He was younger than us." The five-building campus, usually buzzing with student chatter, had turned into a scene of fire, splintered metal, and screaming. Amid the smoke, Ahnaf spotted a junior student whose skin was scorched and whose body had been pulled out of the blaze by a friend. "His friend told me, 'I can't do this alone. Can you help me?' So I picked the boy up, put him on my shoulder, and carried him to the medical room." Another woman was on fire. Children ran from the building stripped to their underclothes, their garments burned off, their skin blistering in the intense heat. "On the second floor, students were stranded and screaming," Ahnaf said. "We broke open a grille to reach one of the gates, which was on fire. The army and fire service came in and rescued some of them." Ahnaf, like many others, quickly took on roles far beyond his age. "We helped control the crowds, kept people away from the fire. We cleared the roads for ambulances and helped fire service crews pull their pipes through the campus." At one point, he gave the shirt off his back - literally. "One student had nothing on him. I took off my uniform and gave it to him. I continued bare-bodied with the rescue." But the weight of so many young lives lost at the school is something he says will be hard to overcome. One of them was 11-year-old Wakia Firdous Nidhi. She had walked to school that morning like any other day. When the plane hit, her father was at prayer - he ran barefoot from the mosque as soon as he heard. Her uncle, Syed Billal Hossain, told me that the family spent the entire night searching more than half a dozen hospitals. "We walked across Uttara, helpless. Someone said six bodies were at one hospital. At one in the morning on Tuesday, her father identified her - by her teeth and a problem in her eye. But we still haven't been given the body." The pain of losing a child was only compounded by the bureaucratic maze. Despite identifying their daughter by a dental feature and a lens in her eye, the family was told the body wouldn't be released without DNA tests - because there were multiple claimants. First, a police report had to be filed. Then the father gave blood at the military hospital. Now they were waiting for the mother's sample to be drawn. "We know it's her," said Mr Hossain. "But they still won't hand over the body." Wakia, the youngest of three siblings, lived next door to her uncle in an old ancestral home in Diabari. "She grew up in front of our eyes - playing on rooftops, sitting under the coconut tree next to our house, always cradling her baby niece. She was just a child, and she loved children," said Mr Hossain. "I saw her just the day before," he said. "If not for that after-school coaching, she'd be alive." In the chaos and heartbreak that followed the crash, moments of narrow escape and immense courage stood out. One mother told BBC Bengali how she'd given her child money for tiffin instead of packing lunch that morning. During the break, he stepped out to buy food - and unknowingly avoided death by mere chance. "He is alive because I didn't give him tiffin," she said. Another parent's tragedy was unimaginable. He lost both his children within hours. His daughter died first. After burying her, he returned to the hospital only to wake from a brief nap and be told his young son, too, had died. And then there was Mahreen Chowdhury. The teacher, responsible for children in Classes 3 to 5, helped at least 20 students flee the inferno. Refusing to leave, she kept going back into the flames - until her body was burned over 80%. Chowdhury died a hero, saving the lives of those too young to save themselves. For staff at the school, it's like living in a nightmare. "I can't function normally anymore. Every time I look at the building, a wave of grief crashes over me. I feel lost, unwell and depressed. I've lost three children I knew - one of them was my colleague's," said Shafiqul Islam Tultul, a 43-year-old Bengali teacher. In the aftermath, questions and confusion have swirled around the scale of the tragedy. The government has reported 29 deaths and more than 100 injuries, with seven victims still unidentified. However, the military's Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) puts the toll at 31. According to the Health Ministry, 69 people were injured in the crash and rescue efforts - including 41 students. Social media has buzzed with speculation about a possible cover-up, claims the Bangladesh Armed Forces have firmly denied. Meanwhile, the school's head teacher Khadija Akhter told BBC Bengali that families have reported five people still missing. For the eyewitnesses and survivors, the trauma lingers. "I haven't slept for two days," Ahnaf says. "Every time I look outside, I feel like a fighter jet is coming at me. The screams are still in my ears." Fighter jets and commercial planes often fly over the campus, which lies close to Dhaka's international airport. "We're in the flight path," Ahnaf said. "We're used to seeing planes overhead - but we never imagined one would fall from the sky and strike us." Yet, the horrors of that day haunt him relentlessly. The screams, the fire, and the charred bodies of classmates and teachers refuse to fade. "When I close my eyes, it's not darkness I see - it's smoke."
BBC News
5 days ago
- General
- BBC News
Dhaka crash: 'A sound I've never heard - then the jet flew over my head'
"It was like 30 or 40 thunderbolts falling from the sky," said Ahnaf Bin Hasan, an 18-year-old student whose voice still trembled two days after the crash. "I've never heard a sound like that in my life - it came from the sky. In a split second, the fighter jet flew over my head and crashed into the school building."The Bangladesh Air Force F-7 plane had plummeted from the sky and slammed into the primary school building of the Milestone School and College in Dhaka on Monday, marking Bangladesh's deadliest aviation disaster in decades. At least 31 people were killed - many of them schoolchildren under 12 - while waiting to be picked up, heading to coaching classes, or grabbing a quick in his chocolate brown shirt and black trousers, school badge pinned neatly, Ahnaf was chatting with a friend under a canopy on the playground of the sprawling 12-acre campus of Milestone School and College, in the busy Uttara neighbourhood. He says he was barely 30 feet away when the jet nosedived into the building. Ahnaf instinctively dropped to the ground, bracing his head with his hands. When he opened his eyes, the world around him had changed."All I could see was smoke, fire, and darkness. Children were screaming. Everything was chaos," he told the BBC on the phone. The air force said the jet, on a training flight, experienced a mechanical fault shortly after takeoff. The pilot, who ejected just before the crash, later died in hospital."I saw the pilot eject," Ahnaf said. "After the crash, I looked up and saw his white parachute descending. He broke through the tin roof of another building. I heard he was alive after landing, even asked for water. A helicopter came and took him away."As smoke and flames spread through the school, Ahnaf's instincts kicked in. A flaming splinter from the burning plane had struck his backpack, singed his trousers and scorched his hand. "It was so hot, but I threw the bag aside and ran to help."He ran toward the concrete walkway separating the playground from the two-storey primary school building. The plane had slammed into the gate, burrowed six to seven feet into the ground, then tilted upward, crashed into the first floor, and exploded. Two classrooms named Cloud and Sky had become the ground zero of the crash. Near the entrance, Ahnaf saw a student's body, torn apart."It looked like the plane had hit him before slamming into the building," he said. "He was younger than us."The five-building campus, usually buzzing with student chatter, had turned into a scene of fire, splintered metal, and the smoke, Ahnaf spotted a junior student whose skin was scorched and whose body had been pulled out of the blaze by a friend."His friend told me, 'I can't do this alone. Can you help me?' So I picked the boy up, put him on my shoulder, and carried him to the medical room."Another woman was on fire. Children ran from the building stripped to their underclothes, their garments burned off, their skin blistering in the intense heat."On the second floor, students were stranded and screaming," Ahnaf said. "We broke open a grille to reach one of the gates, which was on fire. The army and fire service came in and rescued some of them."Ahnaf, like many others, quickly took on roles far beyond his age."We helped control the crowds, kept people away from the fire. We cleared the roads for ambulances and helped fire service crews pull their pipes through the campus."At one point, he gave the shirt off his back - literally."One student had nothing on him. I took off my uniform and gave it to him. I continued bare-bodied with the rescue."But the weight of so many young lives lost at the school is something he says will be hard to overcome. One of them was 11-year-old Wakia Firdous had walked to school that morning like any other day. When the plane hit, her father was at prayer - he ran barefoot from the mosque as soon as he uncle, Syed Billal Hossain, told me that the family spent the entire night searching more than half a dozen hospitals. "We walked across Uttara, helpless. Someone said six bodies were at one hospital. At one in the morning on Tuesday, her father identified her - by her teeth and a problem in her eye. But we still haven't been given the body."The pain of losing a child was only compounded by the bureaucratic maze. Despite identifying their daughter by a dental feature and a lens in her eye, the family was told the body wouldn't be released without DNA tests - because there were multiple claimants. First, a police report had to be filed. Then the father gave blood at the military hospital. Now they were waiting for the mother's sample to be drawn. "We know it's her," said Mr Hossain. "But they still won't hand over the body."Wakia, the youngest of three siblings, lived next door to her uncle in an old ancestral home in Diabari. "She grew up in front of our eyes - playing on rooftops, sitting under the coconut tree next to our house, always cradling her baby niece. She was just a child, and she loved children," said Mr Hossain."I saw her just the day before," he said. "If not for that after-school coaching, she'd be alive."In the chaos and heartbreak that followed the crash, moments of narrow escape and immense courage stood mother told BBC Bengali how she'd given her child money for tiffin instead of packing lunch that morning. During the break, he stepped out to buy food - and unknowingly avoided death by mere chance. "He is alive because I didn't give him tiffin," she parent's tragedy was unimaginable. He lost both his children within hours. His daughter died first. After burying her, he returned to the hospital only to wake from a brief nap and be told his young son, too, had died. And then there was Mahreen Chowdhury. The teacher, responsible for children in Classes 3 to 5, helped at least 20 students flee the inferno. Refusing to leave, she kept going back into the flames - until her body was burned over 80%. Chowdhury died a hero, saving the lives of those too young to save staff at the school, it's like living in a nightmare. "I can't function normally anymore. Every time I look at the building, a wave of grief crashes over me. I feel lost, unwell and depressed. I've lost three children I knew - one of them was my colleague's," said Shafiqul Islam Tultul, a 43-year-old Bengali teacher. In the aftermath, questions and confusion have swirled around the scale of the tragedy. The government has reported 29 deaths and more than 100 injuries, with seven victims still unidentified. However, the military's Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) puts the toll at to the Health Ministry, 69 people were injured in the crash and rescue efforts - including 41 students. Social media has buzzed with speculation about a possible cover-up, claims the Bangladesh Armed Forces have firmly denied. Meanwhile, the school's head teacher Khadija Akhter told BBC Bengali that families have reported five people still the eyewitnesses and survivors, the trauma lingers."I haven't slept for two days," Ahnaf says. "Every time I look outside, I feel like a fighter jet is coming at me. The screams are still in my ears."Fighter jets and commercial planes often fly over the campus, which lies close to Dhaka's international airport. "We're in the flight path," Ahnaf said. "We're used to seeing planes overhead - but we never imagined one would fall from the sky and strike us."Yet, the horrors of that day haunt him relentlessly. The screams, the fire, and the charred bodies of classmates and teachers refuse to fade."When I close my eyes, it's not darkness I see - it's smoke."
BreakingNews.ie
24-07-2025
- General
- BreakingNews.ie
Plane carrying 48 people crashes in Russia's Far East
Forty-eight people have died in a plane crash in Russia's Far East, the head of the country's Amur region said. The An-24 passenger plane disappeared from radar as it travelled from the city of Blagoveshchensk on the Russian-Chinese border to the town of Tynda. Advertisement Rescuers later found the aircraft's burning wreckage amid dense forests on a hillside south of its planned destination. Regional Governor Vasily Orlov said all passengers, including five children, and crew on board the aircraft were killed in the crash. He also announced three days of mourning. Images of the reported crash site circulated by Russian state media show debris scattered among dense forest, surrounded by plumes of smoke. An An-24 passenger plane belonging Siberia-based Angara Airlines (Marina Lystseva/AP) Russia's Interfax news agency said there were adverse weather conditions at the time of the crash, citing unnamed sources in the emergency services. Advertisement Several Russian news outlets also reported that the aircraft was almost 50 years old, citing data taken from the plane's tail number. The transport prosecutor's office in the Far East reported that the site of the crash was nine miles south of Tynda. The office said the plane attempted a second approach while trying to land when contact with it was lost. The plane had initially departed from Khabarovsk before making its way to Blagoveshchensk and onwards to Tynda. Advertisement Authorities have launched an investigation on suspicion of flight safety violations that resulted in multiple deaths, a standard procedure in aviation accidents. Such incidents have been frequent in Russia, especially in recent years as international sanctions have squeezed the country's aviation sector.
