Pakistani rescuers find wreckage of lost cargo plane; search on for missing crew
By Asif Shahzad and Mubasher Bukhari
Details of the Cargo Plane Crash and Ongoing Search Efforts
ISLAMABAD, July 8 (Reuters) - Pakistani rescuers found the wreckage of a cargo plane in a deep-sea search operation on Wednesday, 12 hours after it went missing off the coast of Karachi, with efforts underway to find the five crew members who were on board, authorities said.
Discovery of the Wreckage
The wreckage of the K2 Airways Boeing 737 was recovered 53 nautical miles (98 km) south of Ormara port, the Pakistan Airports Authority said.
The Pakistan Navy and Pakistan Maritime Security Agency deployed "various air and sea borne assets" to locate the remains, it said, adding that the search operation was continuing to find the crew members.
Government Response and Crew Information
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had directed authorities to speed up the search for the 27-year-old converted freighter, which went missing in the Arabian Sea after reporting a navigational system problem.
K2 Airways, the plane's operator, said the crew comprised two pilots, two engineers and one support staffer. Authorities have made no official declaration on their status, although Sharif expressed his "heartfelt condolences" to their families.
Flight Path and Incident Details
The plane may have crashed into the sea southwest of Karachi after a series of sharp altitude changes before a steep final descent, according to flight-tracking service Flightradar24.
Authorities had launched a coordinated search-and-rescue operation at sea through various agencies, the airports authority said. K2 Airways said it was cooperating with the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority and other government agencies. Boeing has not yet commented.
The plane reported a navigational system issue at 9:18 p.m. Pakistan Standard Time (1618 GMT) on Tuesday while flying towards Karachi from Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, the airports authority said.
Rapid Descent and Loss of Communication
PLANE DESCENDED RAPIDLY
Local air traffic control tried to guide it, but three minutes later radar systems showed the plane descending rapidly and communication was lost, the authority said. The flight was about 155 nautical miles (287 km) west of Karachi at the time, according to the statement.
The final minutes of Flightradar24's tracking data appeared chaotic, showing the plane plunging about 5,000 feet in less than a minute before soaring about 6,000 feet in 30 seconds and then entering a catastrophic dive from 36,550 feet.
The last transmitted data point placed the aircraft at 1,100 feet above sea level, with a vertical rate of minus 22,400 feet per minute — about 400 kilometres per hour — an extremely steep and abnormal rate of descent.
Aircraft Background and Technical Details
The missing aircraft is one of Boeing's decades-old 737-400s, two generations older than the 737 MAX that has been involved in a safety crisis. It uses engines made by CFM International, jointly owned by GE Aerospace and France's Safran.
U.S. safety expert and former commercial pilot John Cox said in an interview that flight-tracking data available so far suggested the crew appeared to be struggling with the airplane for unknown reasons.
"It is possible, in the last portions of it, that the airplane was stalled and descending at a very, very high rate," said Cox, who has experience flying the 737-400.
Investigation and International Involvement
Air crashes are typically caused by multiple factors, and investigations can take at least a year to complete.
Authorities in Pakistan, which is leading the probe under international rules, have not said whether they have recovered the plane's "black boxes" that provide crucial data.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said it had appointed an accredited representative to assist Pakistan in the investigation along with technical advisers from Boeing, GE Aerospace and the Federal Aviation Administration.
History of the Aircraft and Previous Incidents
The K2 Airways jet was first delivered as a passenger plane to Russia's Aeroflot in 1999 and was converted to a freighter in 2012, according to Flightradar24. It is K2 Airways' only aircraft and entered service with the carrier in 2024. Its previous flight was on June 28, according to Flightradar24 data.
The incident would be Pakistan's first fatal crash since 2020, when a Pakistan International Airlines Airbus A320 came down short of the runway in Karachi, killing 97 people.
(Reporting by Asif Shahzad in Islamabad and Mubasher Bukhari in Lahore; Additional reporting by Allison Lampert in Montreal and David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Hugh Lawson, Philippa Fletcher and Jamie Freed)
