More than 12 hours after a cargo plane disappeared from radar over the Arabian Sea, Pakistani authorities on Wednesday located its wreckage off the country’s southern coast, even as rescue teams continued searching for the five crew members on board.
The Boeing 737 cargo aircraft, operated by private carrier K2 Airways, was flying from Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates to Karachi when it reported a navigational system issue before vanishing from radar on Tuesday evening.
The Pakistan Airports Authority (PAA) said the wreckage was found in the Arabian Sea near Ormara town after an overnight search involving the Pakistan Navy, the Maritime Security Agency, merchant vessels and military aircraft.
“Efforts are underway to find the missing crew members,”
the authority said in a statement, adding that search and rescue operations remain underway.
The PAA also released images showing rescue personnel recovering pieces of the aircraft’s fuselage from the sea and loading the debris onto a larger vessel. Other photographs showed sections of the red-and-white fuselage bearing the words “K2 Air” laid out on the ship’s deck.
How Did The Plane Disappear?
According to the PAA, the aircraft was approaching Karachi when it reported a navigational system issue. Radar data later showed the plane rapidly descending before contact was lost about 155 nautical miles west of Karachi at around 9:21 pm local time on Tuesday.
Preliminary flight data cited by Flightradar24 indicated that the aircraft first lost altitude, briefly climbed again and then suffered a second, sharp loss of altitude before disappearing from radar.
Before the wreckage was located, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed “deep sorrow, grief and regret” over what he described as the tragic incident involving the privately operated cargo aircraft.
Pakistan’s Aviation Safety Record
K2 Airways is a private Pakistani cargo airline that operates scheduled and charter cargo services within Pakistan and internationally.
According to aviation database Airfleets.net, the aircraft was manufactured in 1999 and initially operated as a passenger jet with Aeroflot and Garuda Indonesia before being converted into a freighter in 2012.
Pakistan’s aviation sector has faced repeated scrutiny over safety standards following several major crashes over the past decade, including the 2020 Pakistan International Airlines crash in Karachi that killed 97 people.
The European Union had barred Pakistan’s national carrier from operating in its airspace for four years over safety and pilot licensing concerns before lifting the ban in 2024.
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