Pakistan: Boeing 737 cargo plane wreckage found, search for 5 crew on

The wreckage of a K2 Airways Cargo Boeing 737 that went missing off the Karachi coast has been found in the Arabian Sea. A massive search and rescue operation is underway to locate the five crew members who were onboard the aircraft.

The wreckage of the Boeing 737 cargo plane was found in the Arabian Sea on Wednesday, nearly 12 hours after the aircraft went missing off the Karachi coast, while search operations continued to locate five crew members onboard, according to the Pakistan Airports Authority.

The Pakistan Navy (PN) and Pakistan Maritime Security Agency (PMSA), after an extensive search and rescue operation in the deep sea, located and identified the wreckage of the K2 Airways Cargo Boeing 737. The debris was recovered around 53 nautical miles south of Pakistan's Ormara, the authority said in a statement.

"PN and PMSA after 12 hours of Search & Rescue operations in deep Sea have successfully located and identified wreckage of K2 Airways Cargo B737 which was declared missing last night. The wreckage was recovered from 53 NM South of ORMARA," the statement read on Wednesday.

The Final Moments

The authorities said various air and sea-based assets were deployed to locate the aircraft, and efforts were underway to find the missing crew members. The Pakistan-registered Boeing 737 cargo aircraft, operating a flight from Sharjah to Karachi on Tuesday night, reported a navigational system issue while en route, following which it was guided by Karachi Air Traffic Control.

According to the Pakistan Airports Authority, the aircraft reported the issue at around 9:18 pm (local time) on Tuesday. Three minutes later, at approximately 9:21 pm, the aircraft was observed on radar rapidly descending with a sudden change in heading before radar contact and communication were lost around 155 nautical miles west of Karachi.

"Following the occurrence, Rescue Coordination Centre has been activated and coordinated Search & Rescue launched at sea through various agencies to locate the missing aircraft," the authority said.

Erratic Flight Data

Flight tracking data indicated that the aircraft experienced severe altitude fluctuations before the crash. The plane reportedly descended around 5,000 feet in less than a minute, climbed approximately 6,000 feet within 30 seconds, and later entered a steep descent from an altitude of about 36,550 feet. Its final transmission showed the aircraft at around 1,100 feet with a high rate of descent.

The aircraft involved was a decades-old Boeing 737-400 freighter, a model that predates the newer 737 MAX series. The search and rescue operation remains underway as authorities continue efforts to locate the missing crew members and investigate the cause of the incident. (ANI)

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