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A search is underway after a Boeing 737 cargo plane carrying five crew members went missing off the coast of Karachi and lost contact with air traffic control on Tuesday night, Pakistan aviation authorities said.
The K2 Airways Boeing 737 cargo plane was headed from Sharjah International Airport in the United Arab Emirates to Jinnah International Airport in Karachi, Pakistan, when it reported a navigational system issue and was promptly guided by Karachi Area Control Center, according to a statement from the Pakistan Airports Authority.
The aircraft was observed on radar rapidly descending with a rapid heading change before radar and communication were lost west of Karachi, the statement added.
“Following the occurrence, the Rescue Coordination Centre was activated and a coordinated Search & Rescue operation at sea was launched through various agencies to locate the missing aircraft,” the Pakistan Airports Authority said.
In a statement on Wednesday, K2 Airways identified the five crew members on board the Boeing 737 cargo plane and said it was “fully cooperating with the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority and other government agencies.”
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“We continue to pray, earnestly, for the safety of our colleagues,” the statement said.
The five crew members onboard the aircraft are Captain Muhammad Rizwan, first officer Faisal Mahmood, loadmaster Muhammad Toufiq Khan, engineer Arif Siddiqui and Muhammad Hamid.
There has been no official confirmation of the aircraft’s fate.
Flightradar24 data indicates a loss of altitude, followed by a climb, and then a second, sudden loss of altitude.
The final received data point from the aircraft was about 1,100 feet in altitude, descending at 22,400 feet per minute, according to the data.
Aviation expert Imran Aslam told local ARY News that it remains unclear what caused the aircraft to disappear from radar. He said that even if an aircraft suffers an engine failure, it would normally continue gliding rather than plunge suddenly.
“I still cannot understand how the plane went down so abruptly instead of gliding,” he said.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed “deep grief” and “heartfelt sympathy” to the families of the five crew members on board the plane in a statement on Wednesday.
The last major aviation incident in Pakistan involved a domestic passenger flight in 2020.
The Pakistan International Airlines flight carrying 98 people crashed into a densely populated neighbourhood near Karachi airport while attempting to land. All but one of the 99 people on board were killed, according to The Associated Press.
A government investigation later concluded that human error by the pilots and air traffic controllers caused the crash.
— with files from The Associated Press
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