Pakistan Navy and Pakistan Maritime Security Agency (PMSA) continued their search and rescue operation in the Arabian Sea around Ormara on Thursday to find the bodies of five members of the crew who had gone missing after a cargo plane crashed a couple of days ago. Divers of Pakistan Navy are looking for the bodies underneath the sea. On the other hand, the area where the search operation has been going on has been increased by 15 to 20 nautical miles around the spot where the plane might have crashed.

Contacts have also been established with ships and fishermen who have gone into the sea so that the bodies could be found. On Wednesday, Pakistan Navy and the PMSA located the debris of a missing private cargo plane in the Arabian Sea following an intensive search operation lasting more than 12 hours. The wreckage of the Boeing 737-400 freighter, operated by Pakistani carrier K2 Airways, was discovered approximately 53 nautical miles south of the coastal town of Ormara.

Despite finding the debris, officials said that search was under way to find the five missing crew members and additional evidence. The 27-year-old converted freighter was en route from Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, to Karachi on Tuesday night when the tragedy struck. According to the Pakistan Airports Authority, the crew transmitted an emergency message at 9:18pm, reporting a critical technical malfunction in the aircraft’s navigational systems.

Air traffic controllers in Karachi immediately attempted to guide the aircraft, but radar systems monitored a highly volatile and chaotic sequence in the flight’s final minutes. Data compiled from flight-monitoring services indicated that the plane initially plunged 5,000 feet in less than a minute, violently surged back up by 6,000 feet within 30 seconds, and then entered an uncontrolled, catastrophic dive from an altitude of 36,550 feet. 

Credit: Independent News Pakistan (INP)