KARACHI: The wreckage from a K2 Airways cargo Boeing 737 that vanished over the Arabian Sea the previous night have been recovered, ending a 12-hour hunt across deep waters.
However, no clue of five missing crew members including Mohammad Rizwan Idrees (Pilot in Command), Faisal Mehmood (First Officer), Muhammad Toufique Khan (Load Master), Arif Siddiqui (Engineer)and Mohammad Hamid (Engineer).
According to the Pakistan Airports Authority (PAA) said that the Pakistan Navy (PN) and Pakistan Maritime Security Agency (PMSA) recovered the debris approximately 53 nautical miles south of Ormara, a coastal town in Balochistan province, after coordinating what officials described as a wide-ranging air and sea search.
Multiple air-and sea-borne assets had been deployed to pinpoint the crash site, and that the operation was now shifting toward locating the missing crew, with further updates expected as the search progresses.
The aircraft, operating as Flight KTA1732, was en route from Sharjah to Jinnah International Airport in Karachi when trouble began.
According to the PAA, the crew reported a navigational system issue at 9:18 pm Pakistan Standard Time and was immediately given guidance by the Karachi Area Control Centre.
Three minutes later, at 9:21 pm, radar showed the jet descending rapidly while making a sharp, unexplained change in heading.
Radar contact and radio communication were lost shortly afterward, roughly 155 nautical miles west of Karachi.
The loss of contact triggered activation of Pakistan’s Rescue Coordination Centre, which launched a multi-agency search at sea.
The plane, registered AP-BOI, was a roughly 27-year-old Boeing 737-400 freighter. It began commercial life as a passenger jet with Aeroflot in 1999, later flew for Garuda Indonesia, and was converted to a cargo aircraft in 2012, subsequently operating for TNT Airways and ASL Airlines Belgium.
K2 Airways is a Karachi-based private air cargo airline that launched operations in late 2024 after a failed, multi-year attempt to establish a regional passenger fleet with Embraer jets.
The startup pivoted to exclusive freight operations to capture under-served shipping lanes, but its single-aircraft fleet model collapsed after this crash.
When contacted, Tariq Raja was not available for comments.
Investigators will likely prioritize recovery of the aircraft’s flight data and cockpit voice recorders, which could clarify what triggered the reported navigational fault and the violent altitude swings seen in the plane’s final minutes.
Aviation analysts cautioned it is too early to determine a cause, adding that a typical navigational or engine failure would usually allow a crew time to glide rather than produce the kind of rapid, uncontrolled descent recorded by trackers. Authorities said search efforts for the crew were continuing and complicated by rough sea conditions.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2026
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