Deep-sea search operations are ongoing in the Arabian Sea, led by the Pakistan Navy and Pakistan Maritime Security Agency (PMSA), to locate five crew members missing after a K2 Airways cargo flight crashed on Tuesday night. A coordinated maritime and aerial mission covers the area off the coasts of Sindh and Balochistan.
Various air and sea assets have been deployed to scan the search zone, with the missing crew identified as pilot Muhammad Rizwan Idris, co-pilot Faisal Jatoi, flight engineers Muhammad Hamid and Muhammad Arif Siddiqui, and support staffer Muhammad Taufiq Khan. Although authorities have not formally declared their status, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has instructed emergency teams to utilize all available resources to accelerate the rescue efforts.
The Boeing 737-400 freighter was en route from Sharjah, UAE, to Karachi when the crew reported a technical problem with the global navigation satellite system at 9:18 pm Pakistan Standard Time. Karachi air traffic control immediately attempted to assist, but three minutes later, the aircraft began a rapid descent and lost radar contact approximately 155 nautical miles west of Karachi.
Flight-tracking data from Flightradar24 revealed significant altitude fluctuations in the final three minutes: a drop of 5,000 feet in under a minute, a climb of 6,000 feet within 30 seconds, followed by a final dive from 36,550 feet. The last recorded position showed the plane at 1,100 feet above sea level, descending at a rate of 22,400 feet per minute. Debris was located about 12 hours after the reported navigational malfunction.
Aviation safety experts, including former commercial pilot John Cox, have suggested the data indicates an aerodynamic stall after the crew struggled to maintain control. Recovery operations face challenges due to the search area’s variable water depths ranging from 2,500 to over 3,500 meters and strong underwater currents.
The aircraft, originally delivered to Russia’s Aeroflot as a passenger jet in 1999, was converted to a freighter in 2012 and has been K2 Airways’ only fleet asset since late 2024. It had been grounded in Sharjah for ten days before the accident for maintenance, awaiting a replacement part from the United States.
Pakistan is leading the investigation into the accident under international civil aviation protocols. The United States National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has assigned an accredited representative to support the local inquiry, joined by technical advisers from Boeing, GE Aerospace, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to determine the cause of the system failures.
