Height, zoning restrictions not enforced in critical airport space
22 July 2026, 00:00 AM
Zyma Islam
Helemul Alam
Year after year the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB) has been battling to keep the airspace surrounding Dhaka’s airports clean of buildings that exceed the height limit.The CAAB repeatedly wrote to Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (Rajuk) to take action well before the tragedy at Milestone School and College that claimed 36 lives, mostly children, a year ago yesterday. “Over the past decade, more than 640 buildings were flagged for violating airport height restrictions,” Air Commodore Md Nur-e-Alam, member (Air Traffic Management) at CAAB, told The Daily Star.A set of CAAB documents prepared since 2015 and obtained by The Daily Star recently showed at least 325 structures exceed the permitted height restrictions around Tejgaon Airport and Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (HSIA).The structures include 178 residential buildings, 121 commercial establishments, 11 government structures, five hospitals, five hotels, and five educational institutions.Of them, 202 encroached on the protected airspace around Tejgaon Airport and 123 around HSIA.The documents also show that CAAB continued alerting Rajuk about the violations in the months leading up to the Milestone tragedy.Between January and June last year, the regulator sent at least six letters seeking action against 17 structures.On January 16 last year, it asked Rajuk to act against three residential buildings in North Kafrul for violating Tejgaon Airport’s funnel zone, the airspace required for planes to safely land and take-off.
