A Pakistani cargo plane with five crew members on board went missing Tuesday night over the Indian Ocean, the Pakistan Airports Authority posted on social media.
The Boeing 737-400, operated by Pakistani airline K2 Airways, was headed from Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, to Karachi, Pakistan — a nearly 730-mile flight. The crew reported a navigational issue at 9:18 p.m. Tuesday.
At 9:21 p.m., the plane began a rapid descent before dropping off radar and losing communication with air traffic control about 178 miles west of Karachi, the Pakistan Airports Authority said.
A maritime rescue operation was launched to find the plane and crew.
K2 Airways identified the crew members on social media: pilot-in-command Mohammad Rizwan Idrees, first officer Feisal Mehmood, load master Muhammad Toufique Khan, and engineers Arif Siddiqui and Mohammad Hamid.
“K2 Airways is fully cooperating with the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority and other government agencies. We continue to pray, earnestly, for the safety of our colleagues,” the airline said in its release.
Sources told Pakistani newspaper the Daily Jang that the plane was flying to Sharjah for repairs for an unspecified technical issue, and that it stayed in the United Arab Emirates for five days before departing empty for Pakistan.
The 27-year-old plane was delivered to Russian airline Aeroflot in 1999 and operated as a passenger plane before being converted for freight use in 2012, according to Flightradar24 data cited by Reuters.
It is the only plane in the K2 Airways fleet, according to Al Jazeera.
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