K2 Cargo plane missing off Karachi coast, search underway for 5 crew members

KARACHI: A Pakistan-registered Boeing 737 cargo plane carrying five crew members has lost contact with air traffic control over the Arabian Sea after reporting a navigational system malfunction while en route to Karachi, aviation officials said.

The 27-year-old converted freighter, operated by K2 Airways, was travelling from Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday night when the incident occurred.

According to the Pakistan Airports Authority, a co-ordinated search and rescue operation has been launched at sea involving multiple state agencies to locate the missing aircraft and its crew.

Chaotic final data points

The aircraft reported a technical issue with its navigational system at 9:18pm Pakistan Standard Time (1618 GMT). While local air traffic controllers attempted to guide the plane, radar tracking systems showed the aircraft descending rapidly just three minutes later before communication was abruptly lost.

At the time of the final transmission, the flight was positioned approximately 155 nautical miles (287 kilometres) southwest of Karachi.

Early tracking data from flight-monitoring service Flightradar24 indicated a highly volatile sequence in the aircraft’s final minutes. The plane plunged roughly 5,000 feet in less than a minute, surged back up by some 6,000 feet within 30 seconds, and subsequently entered a catastrophic dive from an altitude of 36,550 feet.

The last transmitted data point placed the aircraft at just 1,100 feet above sea level, recording an extreme and abnormal vertical descent rate of minus 22,400 feet per minute amounting to roughly 400 kilometres per hour.

Aircraft history and rescue response

In a statement released on social media, K2 Airways confirmed it is actively co-operating with the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority and other relevant government bodies.

“We continue to pray, earnestly, for the safety of our colleagues,” the carrier stated. Commenting on the erratic tracking, aerospace safety consultant Anthony Brickhouse noted that while the extreme data points are highly unusual, it remains too early to draw definitive conclusions without a thorough investigation.

The missing 737-400 aircraft is part of Boeing’s older generation fleet, preceding the 737 MAX version, and is powered by CFM International engines.

Initially delivered as a passenger airliner to Russia’s Aeroflot in 1999, the airframe was converted into a freighter in 2012 before entering service as K2 Airways’ sole aircraft in 2024.

Prior to Tuesday’s flight, the aircraft had not flown since June 28. If casualties are confirmed, this incident would mark the first fatal aviation crash in Pakistan since the 2020 Pakistan International Airlines passenger jet tragedy in Karachi.