Pakistani rescuers find wreckage of lost cargo plane
Officials said that Pakistani rescue teams found the wreckage of the Boeing cargo plane in a deep-sea search operation 12 hours after it disappeared off the coast of Karachi, and efforts to find the five crew members on the plane are continuing.
Pakistan Airports Authority said the wreckage of K2 Airways cargo Boeing 737 was found 98 km south of Ormara port.
The Pakistani navy and Pakistan Maritime Security Agency deployed “various air and sea vehicles” to find the remains, it said, adding that a search operation was ongoing to find the crew.
The plane had departed Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates and reported problems with its navigation system before losing contact with air traffic control.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had instructed the authorities to speed up the search for the 27-year-old converted cargo ship, which disappeared in the Arabian Sea due to a problem with its navigation system.
The plane’s operator, K2 Airways, said the crew consisted of two pilots, two engineers and one support staff.
Although the sheriff expressed his “sincere condolences” to their families, authorities did not make an official statement about the situation of these people.
The plane may have crashed into the sea southwest of Karachi after a series of sharp altitude changes before a steep final descent, according to flight tracking service Flightradar24.
Authorities launched a coordinated search and rescue operation at sea through various agencies, the airport official said.
K2 Airways said it was cooperating with the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority and other government agencies.
Boeing has not yet commented.
The airport official said that the plane reported a problem with its navigation system at 21.18 hours while flying towards Karachi.
Local air traffic control tried to divert the plane, but after three minutes radar systems showed the plane was descending rapidly and communication was lost, the official said.
According to the statement, the flight was approximately 285 km west of Karachi at the time.
The final minutes of Flightradar24’s tracking data appeared chaotic; It showed the plane diving to about 5,000 feet in less than a minute, then rising to about 6,000 feet in 30 seconds, and then entering a catastrophic dive from 36,550 feet.
Pakistan Airports Authority reported that a search and rescue operation at sea was launched to locate the plane and the five crew members on board. https://t.co/u4LaYVaurq— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) July 7, 2026
The last data point transmitted placed the aircraft at an extremely steep and abnormal descent rate of 3,100 meters above sea level, with a vertical speed of minus 22,400 feet per minute (about 400 km/h).
The missing plane is one of Boeing’s decades-old 737-400s; It is two generations older than the 737 MAX, which suffered a safety crisis.
It uses engines manufactured by CFM International, which is jointly owned by GE Aerospace and France’s Safran.
According to Flightradar24, the 737-400 was first delivered to Russia’s Aeroflot as a passenger aircraft in 1999 and was converted to a freighter in 2012.
It is K2 Airways’ only aircraft and entered service with the carrier in 2024.
Its previous flight was on June 28, according to Flightradar24 data.
The incident will be Pakistan’s first fatal accident since 2020, when a Pakistan International Airlines Airbus A320 crashed onto the runway in Karachi, killing 97 people.
with AP
