ISLAMABAD, July 8, (v7n) – Pakistan was searching Wednesday for a Boeing cargo plane that went missing off the coast of Karachi after radar showed it "rapidly descending," the Pakistan Airport Authority (PAA) said.
The aircraft, operated by private carrier K2 Airways, was en route from Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates to Karachi on Tuesday evening when it reported a "navigational system issue." The plane had five crew members on board.
At 21:21 Pakistan time, the aircraft was observed on radar "rapidly descending and with rapid heading change" about 155 nautical miles west of Karachi, after which communication contact was lost, the PAA said. A rescue coordination centre was activated, and a search operation was launched at sea.
Flightradar24.com reported that preliminary data indicated "a loss of altitude, followed by a climb, and then a second, sudden and dramatic loss of altitude."
K2 Airways is a private cargo airline operating scheduled and charter flights both domestically and internationally. The missing aircraft, manufactured in 1999, previously flew as a passenger plane for Aeroflot and Garuda Indonesia before being converted to cargo configuration in 2012, according to Airfleets.net.
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