Pakistan searches for missing Boeing cargo plane after PM says it crashed into sea

KARACHI: Pakistan searched on Wednesday for a Boeing cargo plane that went missing off the country’s southern coast, with prime minister Shehbaz Sharif saying the aircraft had crashed into the Arabian Sea with five people on board.

The aircraft was approaching Karachi from Sharjah in the UAE when radar showed it “rapidly descending” Tuesday evening after reporting a “navigational system issue”, the Pakistan Airports Authority (PAA) said in a post on X.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed “deep sorrow, grief, and regret over the tragic incident in which a private cargo aircraft (K2 Airways) flying from Sharjah to Karachi crashed into the Arabian Sea and went missing”, according to a statement from his office.

He offered condolences to the families of the five crew members on board and directed Pakistan civil aviation authorities, the navy and the airforce to intensify search and rescue operations and use all available resources.

A source familiar with the matter told AFP that both navy and merchant vessels were taking part in the efforts to locate the missing plane, supported by military aircraft.

At 21.21pm Pakistan time, the aircraft was observed on radar “rapidly descending and with rapid heading change” and communication contact was lost about 155 nautical miles west of Karachi, the PAA said.

Preliminary data sent from the plane “indicated a loss of altitude, followed by a climb, and then a second, sudden and dramatic loss of altitude”, according to Flightradar24.com, a global flight-tracking service.

K2 Airways is a private cargo airline in Pakistan that operates scheduled and charter flights domestically and internationally.

Manufactured in 1999, the plane flew as a passenger plane for Aeroflot and Garuda Indonesia before being converted to a cargo configuration in 2012, according to Airfleets.net.

Pakistan aviation has a chequered history with several major deadly plane crashes in the past decade, including in the southern city of Karachi.

The EU barred Pakistan’s national carrier from its airspace for four years over safety and licensing concerns, but lifted the ban in 2024.