Search intensifies for five missing K2 Airways crew in Arabian Sea

WEB DESK: Deep-sea search operations led by the Pakistan Navy and the Pakistan Maritime Security Agency (PMSA) continue in the Arabian Sea to locate the five missing crew members of the K2 Airways cargo flight that came down on Tuesday night.

A coordinated maritime and aerial effort remains underway across the search zone off the coast of Sindh and Balochistan. According to statements shared by the Pakistan Airports Authority (PAA) on X, various air and sea-borne assets have been deployed to scour the water.

The missing crew members have been identified by the airline as pilot Muhammad Rizwan Idris, co-pilot Faisal Jatoi, flight engineers Muhammad Hamid and Muhammad Arif Siddiqui, and support staffer Muhammad Taufiq Khan. While authorities have issued no formal declaration regarding their status, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has directed emergency teams to use all available resources to expedite the operation.

Air traffic control logs flight instability

The cargo aircraft, a Boeing 737-400 freighter operated by K2 Airways, was travelling from Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates to Karachi when the flight crew communicated a technical issue with the global navigation satellite system at 9:18pm Pakistan Standard Time.

As detailed by the PAA, air traffic controllers in Karachi attempted to provide immediate guidance, but the aircraft began a rapid descent three minutes later, and all radar contact was lost roughly 155 nautical miles west of Karachi.

Data provided by global flight-tracking service Flightradar24 revealed severe altitude fluctuations during the final three minutes of the flight. The logs recorded the aircraft plunging 5,000 feet in under a minute, climbing 6,000 feet within the next 30 seconds, and then entering a final dive from an altitude of 36,550 feet. The last transmitted data point placed the aircraft at 1,100 feet above sea level with a vertical descent rate of minus 22,400 feet per minute.
Rescuers found the debris field approximately 12 hours after the aircraft reported a navigational malfunction and disappeared from radar.

Specialised assets deployed for recovery probe

Aviation safety experts, including former commercial pilot John Cox, noted that the tracking indicators point to an aerodynamic stall following a prolonged struggle by the crew to maintain control. Recovery operations are expected to face technical challenges due to varying water depths in the search zone, which range from 2,500 to over 3,500 metres, alongside strong underwater currents.

The aircraft involved was first delivered to Russia’s Aeroflot as a passenger jet in 1999, converted to a freighter in 2012, and had been operating as K2 Airways’ sole fleet asset since late 2024. Prior to Tuesday’s flight, the airframe had been grounded in Sharjah for ten days for maintenance while awaiting a replacement component from the United States.

Pakistan is leading the safety investigation under international civil aviation guidelines. The United States National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has designated an accredited representative to assist the local inquiry board, joined by technical advisers from Boeing, GE Aerospace, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to determine the cause of the system failures.