A search is underway for five Pakistani nationals who went missing after the cargo plane they were on disappeared over the Arabian Sea.The Boeing 737 aircraft was operated by K2 Airways, a Pakistani airline named for Earth’s second-highest peak. The plane was scheduled to fly between Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, and Karachi, Pakistan, before it lost contact with air traffic controllers south of Pakistan.Public aircraft tracking systems show the plane descending rapidly when it last pinged ground stations at 9:21 p.m. local time on Tuesday. The aircraft was headed toward the sea at the time at a rate of 22,400 feet per minute.
The Pakistan Airports Authority said in a statement on social media that it had launched search and rescue aircraft to locate the missing plane. Government officials also said the Pakistan Navy frigate PNS Zulfiqar was en route to the possible crash zone.The Pakistan Navy released photos on Wednesday of wreckage belonging to the aircraft, which it discovered in the deep sea near the town of Ormara.
In this photo released by Pakistan Navy, Pakistan Navy personnel shift the wreckage of a cargo plane of the private carrier K2 Airways into a naval ship after recovering it from the deep sea on Wednesday, July 8, 2026, near Omara, a town some 220 miles west of Karachi, Pakistan. (Pakistan Navy via AP)
