Pakistan searches for plane that disappeared from radar
Pakistani authorities are conducting an operation to search for a Boeing 737-400 cargo plane of K2 Airways airline with five crew members, which was flying on the Sharjah-Karachi route.
It disappeared from radar over the Arabian Sea about 250 km west of the Pakistani port city of Karachi, The Express Tribune newspaper reported.
According to a statement from the Pakistan Airports Authority (PAA), the radar "recorded a rapid descent and a sharp change in the aircraft's course, after which contact with it was lost about 155 nautical miles west of Karachi." Several minutes earlier, the pilot had reported a problem with the navigation system.
"Preliminary ADS-B data (aircraft tracking technology) indicate a loss of altitude, followed by a gain in altitude, and then a second, sudden and sharp loss of altitude," the statement said. The last data came to the control room from the aircraft when it was at an altitude of 355 m, and its "vertical speed reached 6,827 m per minute."
The Pakistani Navy frigate PNS Zulfiqar (F-251), a Saab 2000 Erieye long-range radar detection and control aircraft, and an ATR-72 turboprop aircraft have been sent to the site of the aircraft's presumed crash. The commercial vessel "Lahore" of the Pakistan National Shipping Corporation is also involved in the search operation.
Source: TASS
