A Pakistani navy ship, air force planes, and a merchant vessel launched a search operation in the Arabian Sea on Wednesday after a K2 Airways Boeing cargo plane went missing on Tuesday night with five crew members on board.
The Karachi-bound aircraft lost contact with air traffic control at 9:18 p. m.
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local time after reporting a navigation system issue, according to the Pakistan Airports Authority. The flight had departed from Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates.
Flight Data Shows Extreme Altitude Changes
Flightradar24 tracking data indicated the aircraft experienced extreme altitude fluctuations before a final, rapid descent.
The plane dropped 5,000 feet, climbed 6,000 feet, and then descended at 22,400 feet per minute from an altitude of 36,550 feet.
Radar and radio communication vanished approximately 155 nautical miles west of Karachi, with the last recorded data placing the aircraft at 1,100 feet.
Officials identified two of the crew members as Captain Rizwan Idrees and First Officer Faisal Jatoi.
The Karachi-based private cargo airline confirmed it is fully cooperating with national authorities during the ongoing search and rescue efforts.
"We continue to pray, earnestly, for the safety of our colleagues," said K2 Airways.
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The missing 27-year-old aircraft was the only plane operating in the carrier's fleet. Pakistan International Airlines expressed condolences and offered support for the search operation.
The Boeing airframe originally entered service in 1999 as a passenger plane for Russia's Aeroflot.
It later operated for Garuda Indonesia before its conversion into a freighter for Belgium's TNT Airways in 2012.
Aircraft tracking records show the freighter was parked in France in June 2023.
AerCap reactivated the plane in April 2024, storing it in Jakarta and Karachi before K2 Airways began operating it in December 2024.
If a crash is confirmed, this incident would represent the first major civilian aviation disaster in Pakistan since May 2020.
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Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed grief over the incident and extended sympathies to the families of the missing crew members.
