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K2 Airways Cargo Plane Missing Over Arabian Sea After Drastic Altitude Drop Off Karachi
A K2 Airways Boeing 737-400 cargo aircraft carrying five crew members disappeared from radar over the Arabian Sea roughly 287km west of Karachi following an abrupt plunge of -22,400 feet per minute. The aircraft had encountered regional GNSS interference after departing Sharjah, prompting an intense multi-agency maritime search and rescue operation.
ND
by News Desk
2026-07-08
K2 Airways Cargo Plane Missing Over Arabian Sea After Drastic Altitude Drop Off Karachi

Detailed Report

  • The Incident: A K2 Airways Boeing 737-400 cargo aircraft carrying five crew members has vanished over the Arabian Sea. The freighter was operating a scheduled route from Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, to Karachi, Pakistan, when it dropped entirely off civil radar networks late on Tuesday night, July 7, 2026. The Pakistan Airports Authority (PAA) confirmed that communication was completely severed approximately 287 kilometers west of Karachi.

  • Final Flight Path Anomaly: Air traffic logs indicate that the flight crew contacted the Karachi Area Control Centre (ACC) at 9:18 pm to report a navigational system issue, requesting ground guidance. While traffic controllers responded with assistance, telemetry data turned critical just three minutes later. At 9:21 pm, tracking systems monitored the aircraft entering a sudden, rapid descent combined with an abrupt change in direction. Flight tracking service FlightRadar24 reported that preliminary ADS-B telemetry captured a severe loss of altitude, a brief corrective climb, and then a final catastrophic plunge—recording a vertical descent rate of -22,400 feet per minute before data cut out at 1,100 feet above mean sea level.

Pre-Incident GNSS Jamming Identified:

Flight metadata analysis revealed that the freighter encountered Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) interference shortly after taking off from Sharjah. Multiple regional flights similarly encountered corrupted positioning data in that zone, which likely contributed to the aircraft’s subsequent onboard navigation failure.

  • Search and Rescue Status: Following the disappearance, maritime authorities immediately activated the regional Rescue Coordination Centre. A multi-agency search and rescue sweep is underway across the Arabian Sea, deploying naval and aerial assets to scour the open waters near the aircraft's last known coordinates. The Bureau of Air Safety Investigation has been tasked with heading the formal inquiry into the underlying causes of the apparent crash.

  • Aircraft Profile: The missing freighter, registered in Pakistan as AP-BOI, is a Boeing 737-4M0(BDSF) that began service with the Karachi-based private carrier K2 Airways in 2024. The 27-year-old airframe originally entered service as a commercial passenger jet for Aeroflot in 1999 and later Garuda Indonesia in 2004, before undergoing a permanent cargo freighter conversion in 2012 to fly for European logistics networks like TNT Airways and ASL Airlines.
Tagged:

#K2Airways #AviationAccident2026 #KarachiRadarLoss #ArabianSeaSearch #Boeing737Freighter #FlightRadar24 #BreakingNewsPakistan
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