Sea and air search launched after cargo jet disappears off Pakistani coast

A major international maritime emergency is lingering in the Arabian Sea.

A major international maritime emergency is lingering in the Arabian Sea. Specialized teams from the Pakistan Navy, Air Force, and civil aviation bodies have launched an intensive search and rescue operation following the sudden disappearance of a commercial cargo aircraft. The plane, a Boeing 737 freighters operated by local carrier K2 Airways, vanished from radar tracking networks late Tuesday night while flying over open water off the coast of Karachi. According to official notifications released by the Pakistan Airports Authority (PAA), the plane was transporting five crew members when it dropped out of contact. No immediate updates on the condition of the personnel or the specific cargo onboard have been established.
The flight, designated as a routine cargo transit from Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates to Pakistan’s bustling southern port city of Karachi, appeared normal until it entered Pakistani airspace. PAA flight logs and radar metrics devised a tense timeline of the final minutes leading up to the aircraft’s disappearance. The flight crew radioed the Karachi Area Control Centre to report a critical malfunction involving their onboard navigational equipment. Air traffic controllers immediately began broadcasting emergency manual guidance vectors to help the pilots steer toward their destination. Merely three minutes after the initial problem was reported, the aircraft’s behavior changed drastically. Civil aviation radar arrays recorded the plane making a sharp, erratic turn in direction accompanied by an alarmingly steep loss of altitude. Seconds later, both transponder tracking and radio contact ceased entirely. The plane’s final known position was clocked roughly 155 nautical miles west of Karachi, over the Arabian Sea near the coastal town of Ormara.
Independent aviation analytics from flight tracking platform Flightradar24 corroborated the erratic final moments of the flight. Preliminary telemetry indicators showed the plane fluctuating wildly, dropping altitude rapidly, executing a brief, desperate climb, and then plunging a second time. The last recorded signal from the aircraft caught it flying just 1,100 feet above sea level while plummeting at a terminal velocity rate of more than 22,000 feet per minute. Given the severe physics of such a descent over open water, tracking experts noted that the digital footprint strongly indicates a catastrophic impact at sea.
The sudden drop from radar immediately triggered the activation of the regional Rescue Coordination Centre. Given the remote marine coordinates of the last known signal, the military has taken a leading role in the search matrix.
The Pakistan Navy deployed the PNS Zulfiqar, a heavily equipped frontline frigate, to navigate directly to the suspected crash grid. Air support has also been heavily integrated into the grid search. A Pakistan Air Force SAAB airborne early warning aircraft and a Navy ATR surveillance plane are flying low-altitude patterns over the dark waters to spot any visible debris fields or emergency life rafts. Additionally, maritime authorities redirected the Lahore, a massive commercial cargo ship operated by the Pakistan National Shipping Corporation that happened to be traversing nearby lanes, to assist the military vessels.
The missing aircraft, registered under the tail number AP-BOI, is a 27-year-old Boeing 737-400 specialized freighter. While it only began its operational tenure with Karachi-based K2 Airways in 2024, the airframe itself carries a long history in global aviation. It subsequently flew logistics routes across Europe for TNT Airways and ASL Airlines before its eventually acquisition by K2 Airways. K2 Airways, a private freight specialist founded in 2018, relies on these adapted Boeing airframes for their cost-efficient heavy payload capabilities. Representatives from the airline and Boeing have not yet issued public comments as the primary focus remains entirely on locating the missing crew. Emergency responders emphasize that despite the grim flight data, search protocols will continue at maximum capacity through the coming hours.