ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday ordered an intensified search and rescue operation for a K2 Airways cargo aircraft that crashed into the Arabian Sea while flying from Sharjah to Karachi, expressing grief over the loss of the aircraft and its five crew members.
According to a statement issued by the Prime Minister’s Office, Sharif expressed “deep sorrow, grief and regret” over the incident, offered condolences to the families of those on board and directed the civil aviation authorities, Pakistan Navy and Pakistan Air Force to use all available resources in the search operation.
The Boeing cargo aircraft went missing while approaching Karachi from Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates 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.
A source familiar with the matter said that both navy and merchant vessels were taking part in the efforts to locate the missing plane, supported by military aircraft.
At 21:21 (1621 GMT) 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.
