Plane goes missing near Pakistan as air traffic control loses contact with aircraft

A cargo plane has gone missing off the Pakistani port of Karachi late Tuesday after rapidly descending and losing contact with air traffic controllers while on a flight from the United Arab Emirates, officials said. Pakistan’s Civil Aviation Authority said in a post on X that search-and-rescue operations were under way in the Arabian Sea for the aircraft, which was carrying five passengers.

The cause of the disappearance was not immediately known. The Boeing 737 was being operated by Karachi-based K2 Airways on a cargo flight from Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates to Karachi when it reported a navigation system problem at 9.18pm local time, the Civil Aviation Authority said.

It added that radar data showed the aircraft rapidly descending and making a sharp change in heading at about 9.21pm, before radar and radio contact were lost about 155 nautical miles west of Karachi.

Flight-tracking service Flightradar24 said in a post on X that preliminary data points to a possible crash in the sea southwest of Karachi.

The plane is believed to have dropped approximately 35,000 feet in less than two minutes, according to tracking data.

Pakistan’s Geo News added that the aircraft went missing while flying over the Arabian Sea near Ormara in Balochistan.