Pakistani rescuers battle rough seas on 2nd day of search for cargo plane crew

Pakistan Navy search and rescue teams battled rough seas on Thursday as the search for the five-member crew of a cargo plane that crashed into the Arabian Sea entered its second day, officials said.

Wreckage was recovered on Wednesday, with no sign of the missing crew members.

The aircraft, operated by private carrier K2 Airways, reported a malfunction in its navigation system before losing radio and radar contact late on Tuesday, according to the Pakistan Airports Authority (PAA). Since then, ships and aircraft have continued to comb waters nearly 300 kilometres southwest of Karachi, where the plane disappeared from radar while approaching Pakistan's largest city from Sharjah.

The cause of the crash remains under investigation. Two officials familiar with the ongoing search and rescue operations told The Associated Press that the aircraft's main fuselage and the five crew members remain missing. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media on the record. They said the search was again proving difficult because of rough seas.

On Wednesday, the PAA said that Navy ships and the Pakistan Maritime Security Agency located and recovered wreckage about 12 hours after the aircraft disappeared. The debris was recovered about 100 kilometres off Ormara, a coastal town on Pakistan's southwestern Makran coast in Balochistan province.

The authority also posted photographs on X showing search crews recovering pieces of the wreckage from the sea.

Officials said the debris was scattered across a wide area, with strong winds, rough seas and shifting ocean currents carrying floating wreckage away from the crash site, complicating efforts to locate the missing crew.

Retired Rear Adm. Faisal Shah said that the search for the main wreckage could take months or even years because the aircraft is believed to have crashed in waters about 3,000 metres (9,800 feet) deep, requiring specialised equipment. He said recovering floating debris does not necessarily identify the exact crash site because wind, waves and ocean currents can carry wreckage over long distances.

He referred to challenges illustrated by the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which disappeared in 2014 and has never been conclusively located despite years of multinational search efforts.

K2 Airways identified the missing crew as Capt. Muhammad Rizwan Idris, First Officer Faisal Jatoi, flight engineers Muhammad Hamid and Muhammad Arif Siddiqui, and aircraft loader Muhammad Taufiq Khan and their families have continued to pray for a miracle as rescuers search for the missing crew in the Arabian Sea.

Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif has directed authorities to use all available resources in the search and expressed sympathy with the families of the missing crew.

The PAA said radar data indicated the aircraft made a sharp change in heading and rapidly descended before radar and radio contact were lost at about 9:21pm on Tuesday, about 287 kilometres west of Karachi.

Pakistan has experienced several fatal air crashes in recent decades.

In May 2020, a Pakistan International Airlines flight carrying 99 people crashed into a densely populated neighbourhood near the Karachi airport while attempting to land.

All but two of the 99 people on board were killed. A government investigation later concluded that human error by the pilots and air traffic controllers caused the crash.

Associated Press