Reuters —
Pakistani rescue teams searched the waters around the suspected crash site on Wednesday, hours after the Boeing cargo plane lost contact with air traffic control while en route to Karachi with five crew members on board, Pakistani authorities said.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has directed authorities to accelerate search and rescue operations for a 27-year-old converted cargo ship that went missing in the Arabian Sea after reporting problems with its navigation system.
K2 Airlines, which operates the plane, said the crew consisted of two pilots, two engineers and one support staff member. Authorities have not made an official statement about their situation, but Sharif expressed his “deepest condolences” to the family.
Flight tracking service Flightradar 24 said the plane may have crashed into the sea southwest of Karachi after making a series of abrupt altitude changes before making a steep final descent.
Pakistan Airports Authority said on Facebook that authorities have launched a coordinated search and rescue operation at sea through various agencies. K2 Airways said it is cooperating with the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority and other government agencies. Boeing has not yet commented.
Airport authorities said the plane reported a problem with its navigation system at 9:18 p.m. Pakistan Standard Time (16:18 GMT) while en route to Karachi.
Local air traffic control attempted to guide the plane, but three minutes later radar showed the plane descending rapidly and communications were lost, authorities said. The flight was about 155 nautical miles (287 kilometers) west of Karachi at the time, the statement said.
The last few minutes of Flightradar24’s tracking data were chaotic, showing the plane plummeting to about 5,000 feet within a minute, climbing to about 6,000 feet 30 seconds later, then entering a catastrophic nose dive from 36,550 feet.
The last data point transmitted placed the aircraft at 1,100 feet above sea level, with a vertical velocity of -22,400 feet per minute, or approximately 400 kilometers per hour, a very steep and unusual rate of descent.
The missing plane is one of Boeing’s decades-old 737-400s, two generations older than the 737 MAX, which suffered a safety crisis. It is powered by an engine manufactured by CFM International, which is jointly owned by GE Aerospace GE.N and France’s Safran SAF.PA.
According to Flightradar24, the 737-400 was first delivered to Russia’s Aeroflot in 1999 as a passenger aircraft, and was converted to a cargo aircraft in 2012. This is K2 Airlines’ only aircraft and entered service with the company in 2024. The last flight was on June 28, according to Flightradar24 data.
The accident is Pakistan’s first fatal accident since 2020, when a Pakistan International Airlines Airbus AIR.PA A320 crashed short of the runway in Karachi, killing 97 people.
