Pakistan: Cargo Plane Vanishes Near Karachi After Mid-Air Distress
A cargo plane flying from Sharjah to Karachi disappeared from tracking screens over the Arabian Sea late on Tuesday night, Dawn reported.
The K2 Airways Boeing 737-400 jet lost connection with the monitoring base roughly 300 kilometres west of Karachi during its approach to Pakistani airspace, according to the report.
The captain had reported a technical problem mid-flight and sought assistance from the regional control base.
According to the Pakistan Airports Authority (PAA), the missing commercial freighter was carrying five crew members.
The PAA stated that the flight crew reported a tracking instrument failure at 9:18 pm while being monitored by the Karachi Area Control Centre (ACC). However, by 9:21 pm, technical monitors noted that the aircraft was "rapidly descending" and executing an abrupt change in course.
Why did the missing K2 Airways cargo plane lose radar contact near Karachi?
Immediately afterwards, "radar contact and communication were lost" at a distance of nearly 287 kilometres west of Karachi.
The jet had reportedly encountered an operational anomaly with its Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) soon after departure, which compromised tracking accuracy near Sharjah.
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"Preliminary ADS-B data indicate a loss of altitude, followed by a climb, and then a second, sudden and dramatic loss of altitude," global flight-tracking portal FlightRadar stated.
The final broadcast transmission from the jet was logged at an altitude of 1,100 feet above mean sea level, with a "reported vertical rate of -22,400 feet per minute".
The recent mishap serves as a grim reminder of Pakistan's chronically compromised aviation safety record, evoking memories of one of the country's most devastating air disasters.
In May 2020, a Pakistan International Airlines passenger jet carrying 98 people ploughed into a residential colony near Karachi Airport during a botched landing attempt, killing almost everyone on board.
A subsequent government inquiry exposed systemic professional negligence, concluding that egregious human error by the pilot, co-pilot, and the air traffic control teams directly caused the fatal crash.
(With inputs from ANI)