Updated
Updated · Al Jazeera English · Jul 8
Pakistan Searches for Missing 737-400 With 5 Crew as Jet Plunged 36,550 Feet
Updated
Updated · Al Jazeera English · Jul 8

Pakistan Searches for Missing 737-400 With 5 Crew as Jet Plunged 36,550 Feet

3 articles · Updated · Al Jazeera English · Jul 8

Summary

  • A Pakistan-led air and sea search is underway for a Karachi-bound K2 Airways Boeing 737-400 that vanished over the Arabian Sea with five crew aboard.
  • At 9:18 p.m. Tuesday, the freighter reported a navigational system fault after departing Sharjah, then lost contact about 155 nautical miles west of Karachi.
  • Flightradar24 data showed the jet dropping 5,000 feet in under a minute, briefly climbing 6,000 feet, then entering a near-vertical descent from 36,550 feet to a last transmitted altitude of 1,100 feet.
  • Two navy aircraft, a navy ship and a Pakistan National Shipping Corporation merchant vessel are searching the area, but no wreckage or survivors have been found.
  • If confirmed as a crash, it would be Pakistan's first major civilian air disaster since the 2020 PIA crash in Karachi that killed 97 people.

Insights

What caused a cargo plane's chaotic final minutes, climbing and diving thousands of feet before its vertical descent?
After recent repairs, did a 27-year-old jet's hidden flaw lead to its mysterious plunge into the sea?