Pakistan searches for Boeing cargo plane missing over Arabian Sea

The Karachi-bound craft mislaid interaction with aerial postulation power aft reporting a navigational ⁠system fault.

Islamabad, Pakistan – Pakistan is searching for a Boeing cargo craft missing implicit the Arabian Sea with 5 unit members connected board.

The Karachi-bound 737-400 level operated by a Pakistani bearer took disconnected from Sharjah successful the United Arab Emirates and mislaid interaction with aerial postulation power astir 9:18pm (16:18 GMT) connected Tuesday aft reporting a navigational ⁠system fault, the Pakistan Airports Authority said.

Recommended Stories

• list 1 of 3At slightest 22 killed arsenic Pakistani subject chopper crashes successful Kashmir
• list 2 of 3Why is Pakistan selling its JF-17 combatant jets to Bangladesh and others?
• list 3 of 3A twelvemonth aft Air India clang killed 260: Do we cognize what happened?

Minutes later, information from Flightradar24, a planetary flight-tracking service, showed the level losing astir 1,525 metres (5,000ft) of altitude successful little than a infinitesimal earlier climbing astir 1,830 metres (6,000ft) successful the adjacent 30 seconds. It past entered a final, near-vertical descent from a tallness of 11,140 metres (36,550ft).

Its past transmitted presumption placed it astatine 335 metres (1,100ft), descending astatine 22,400 feet per minute, oregon astir 400 kilometres per hour. All interaction was mislaid astir 155 nautical miles (287km oregon 178 miles) westbound of Karachi.

Security sources told Al Jazeera a Pakistani navy ship, a merchant vas operated by the Pakistan National Shipping Corporation and 2 navy craft are taking portion successful the search.

No wreckage oregon survivors person been recovered truthful far.

“We proceed to pray, earnestly, for the information of our colleagues,” K2 Airways, the Karachi-based backstage cargo hose that operated the flight, said successful a connection connected Wednesday, adding that it was afloat cooperating with authorities connected the search.

It was the lone level successful the K2 Airways fleet.

If a clang is confirmed, the incidental would people Pakistan’s archetypal large civilian aerial catastrophe since May 2020 erstwhile a Pakistan International Airlines level crashed abbreviated of the runway successful Karachi, sidesplitting 97 of the 99 radical connected board.

The 27-year-old K2 Airways’ 737-400 has flown for six operators.

Delivered to Russia’s Aeroflot arsenic a rider craft successful 1999, it aboriginal flew for Garuda Indonesia earlier being converted into a freighter successful 2012 for Belgium’s TNT Airways.

Aircraft tracking records amusement it was withdrawn from work successful June 2023 and parked successful France for astir 10 months.

Irish institution AerCap reactivated the craft successful April 2024 earlier placing it backmost into storage, archetypal successful Jakarta and aboriginal successful Karachi, wherever it remained for astir six months earlier entering work with K2 Airways successful December 2024.

In a statement, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed grief implicit the incidental and offered his sympathies to the families of the missing unit members.