How Tejgaon’s silent runway is choking Dhaka’s future
The acrid smoke has cleared from the Milestone School atrocity, leaving behind thirty-five coffins and a city's collective conscience forever scarred. As we scrub soot from classroom walls and bloodstains from textbooks, a fundamental question hangs heavy in our polluted air: why must children learn beneath the shadow of ageing fighter jets in a megacity of 2.3 crore souls? The answer lies partially in Tejgaon—a 300-acre paradox in Dhaka's heart where an "active" airport stands frozen in time, its silent runway strangling our city's future while mocking our collective wisdom.
This ghost airport haunts our children with institutional paralysis. Born as a British World War II airstrip in 1941, Tejgaon served as Bangladesh's primary international airport until 1981, when operations shifted to Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (HSIA). Since then, it has existed as "BAF Base Bashar," a military facility with zero commercial flights. Yet, in 2011, the CAAB and relevant authorities quietly re-designated it as a "domestic airport," defying international aviation standards while enabling real obstruction. This dormant status blocked a critical metro rail route along Bijoy Sarani, forcing costly realignment near parliament, a telling metaphor for how phantom airfields derail progress.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. While Tejgaon's runway gathers dust, Dhaka's skies grow more lethal. Since 2011, the CAAB has identified at least 525 illegal high-rises encroaching on approach paths at HSIA and the old Tejgaon Airport runway, violations reported to RAJUK for over a decade without a single demolition. This regulatory surrender has transformed our airspace into a game of Russian roulette. Aviation safety data confirms that at least 80 percent of accidents occur within the first three minutes of takeoff or in the last eight minutes before landing, where clearance margins are sacred. The Milestone crash, while officially attributed to pilot error (pending investigation), unfolded in a cityscape where illegal construction systematically eroded safety buffers. When ageing aircraft and vertical sprawl collide above schools, tragedy isn't accidental; it's engineered by neglect.
Consider the cruel arithmetic of our urban crisis: according to a 2018 media report, Dhaka just had 0.7 acres of open place for every 1000 residents. This is a mere fraction of the green space recommended by the World Health Organization, which is nine square metre per person, approximately 2.2 acres for every 1000 residents. Around 84 percent residents of the capital's city corporation area have no access to playground facilities, while citizens breathe air laced with particulate matter at over 15 times the WHO safety limits. Against this suffocating reality, Tejgaon's 300 acres represent a life-saving transfusion. Converted into public commons—not commercial real estate—it could absorb tonnes of carbon dioxide annually, provide play space for half a million children, and create a vital green corridor in our concrete heart.
Global cities have shown the way forward. Hong Kong closed its iconic Kai Tak Airport in 1998, replacing it with Chek Lap Kok 34km away—the former runway now blooms with community gardens. Istanbul relocated from Atatürk Airport to a safer facility 40km outside the city in 2019, freeing 1,500 hectares for urban renewal. Osaka built Kansai Airport offshore in 1994, eliminating urban overflights entirely. Yet, Dhaka tolerates the surreal spectacle of fighter jets practising manoeuvres over Gulshan while planners whisper about distant "aerotropolises." This isn't urban planning; it's institutional surrender disguised as strategy.
While we recognise Tejgaon's symbolic heritage, we must remember that true strength lies in adaptive leadership. The Bangladesh Armed Forces embody the strategic foresight our city desperately needs—the very logic that would never permit an active airfield in a dense urban centre. Relocating training operations to purpose-built facilities beyond Dhaka wouldn't be retreat; it would be an advance towards a capital worthy of our aspirations.
Besides, the Milestone children weren't martyrs to progress; they were casualties of inertia. Every day, Tejgaon remains unfollowed, costing Dhaka $8.7 million in lost economic opportunity while denying generations clean air and play space. We've mastered disaster response, the floral tributes, and compensation cheques, but failed at prevention. True honour lies in sparing future classrooms from becoming crash sites.
Imagine dew glistening on wild grasses where tarmac once baked. Grandparents practising tai chi beneath canopies of neem and kadam. Teenagers playing cricket where fighter jets idled. Children sketching clouds unobscured by exhaust. This vision isn't utopian; it's achievable if we trade complacency for courage.
The Milestone children won't play in this park. But we owe them this legacy—a city where classrooms aren't crash zones, where the only shadows over schools come from clouds, not ageing jets; where our planning finally looks upward, not in fear, but in hope. Three hundred acres of redemption await beneath the silent runway. All we need is the will to breathe.
Zakir Kibria is a Bangladeshi writer, policy analyst and entrepreneur based in Kathmandu. He can be reached at [email protected].
Views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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