Relatives of the five crew members who perished in the Boeing 737 cargo plane crash into the Arabian Sea off Pakistan on July 7 are calling for an international search effort to recover the flight recorders. These black boxes are crucial to uncovering the cause of the accident.
Debris from the K2 Airways freighter was retrieved soon after the crash, but the wreckage lies in waters approximately 3,000 meters (9,800 feet) deep. Aviation experts note that locating the recorders would require an expensive underwater operation, likely necessitating foreign assistance, similar to the Air France 447 search in 2009.
The plane’s locator beacons are designed to emit signals for only 30 days, making the search time-sensitive. Recovering the black boxes could clarify whether a navigational system problem, reported shortly before the crash, was connected to a component that relatives say had been replaced prior to the flight.
Meanwhile, Pakistan has not provided any public updates on the search for over a week. An industrial company with underwater search expertise has indicated no requests for foreign aid have been made by Pakistan’s authorities.
“The search must continue, and all available resources, both local and international, should be utilized,” stated Yashib Rizwan, eldest son of Captain Rizwan Idris. Engineer Muhammad Arif Siddiqui’s son, Abdur Rafay Siddiqui, also emphasized the need for international support if necessary. Both families have conducted funeral prayers after losing hope of recovering the bodies.
The Pakistani government has yet to respond to inquiries about seeking foreign assistance for the search. K2 Airways, which lost its only aircraft in the crash, has not commented on the situation.
In a significant development, the pilots reported a navigational system issue at 9:18 p.m. Pakistan time while en route to Karachi from Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, Pakistan’s airports authority. Local air traffic control attempted to assist, but three minutes later, radar showed the plane descending rapidly and communication was lost.
Flight data revealed the aircraft dropped about 5,000 feet in under a minute, then climbed roughly 6,000 feet in 30 seconds before entering a catastrophic dive from 36,550 feet. The plane had been in Sharjah for about ten days awaiting a replacement part from the U.S. after a maintenance fault, Ghulam Nabi, father-in-law of co-pilot Faisal Jatoi.
Notably, one of the plane’s two inertial reference units (IRUs), which provide critical data on position, speed, and orientation to the cockpit, was replaced in Sharjah, as confirmed by Captain Rizwan’s son, Yashib Rizwan. Former U.S. National Transportation Safety Board member John Goglia explained that pilots cannot rely on instruments if the IRU malfunctions, especially when flying at night over the ocean without visual cues, making it difficult to maintain orientation.
Aircraft accidents often result from multiple causes, and it remains uncertain if the IRU replacement contributed to this crash. A similar malfunction played a role in the 2007 Adam Air crash in Indonesia, where pilots became distracted by faulty instrument readings, failed to notice a steep bank, and lost control, resulting in the deaths of all 102 on board.
The Adam Air black boxes were located about three weeks after the crash with U.S. Navy assistance, but recovering them from roughly 2,000 meters deep required a months-long, multimillion-dollar operation using a specialized remotely operated vehicle.
U.S. aviation expert Todd Curtis noted on the “Flight Safety Detectives” podcast that Pakistan is unlikely to undertake a comparable recovery effort unless there is a strong justification, given that the K2 plane was an aging cargo jet rather than a current passenger model.
