A Boeing 737 cargo plane with five crew members on board lost contact with air traffic control on the night of July 7, 2026, Pakistani aviation authorities reported. The Karachi-bound aircraft, operated by a Pakistani carrier, had taken off from Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates and was flying over the Arabian Sea near Ormara in Balochistan, Pakistan, when it went missing.

The Pakistan Airport Authority (PAA) said the plane lost contact around 9:18 pm local time (16:18 GMT) after reporting a navigational system fault. Radar data indicated the aircraft was descending rapidly before communication was lost. Flight-tracking service Flightradar24.com showed preliminary data from the plane indicating a loss of altitude, followed by a climb, and then a second, sudden and dramatic loss of altitude. The last transmitted data placed the aircraft at 1,100 feet (335 meters) above sea level with a vertical descent rate of minus 22,400 feet per minute, an extremely steep and abnormal rate.

Anthony Brickhouse, an aerospace safety consultant, told Reuters, "Anytime you see something major like that, it catches your eye, but it is too soon to say what any of it means without more information."

The PAA has activated a rescue coordination center and launched a search effort at sea to locate the missing aircraft. K2 Airways, the Karachi-based private cargo airline operating the flight, stated it is fully cooperating with authorities and continues to pray for the safety of its colleagues.

The aircraft was originally delivered as a passenger plane to Russia's Aeroflot in 1999, later operated by Garuda Indonesia, and converted into a freighter in 2012 for Belgium's TNT Airways. It entered service with K2 Airways in December 2024 after being reactivated and stored in Jakarta and Karachi.

This incident follows other recent aviation tragedies in the region, including a Pakistani military helicopter crash in Kashmir that killed at least 22 people and recalls the Air India crash a year ago that killed 260.

Sources