Cargo plane en route to Karachi goes missing: PAA

KARACHI: A cargo aircraft has gone missing approximately 300 nautical miles from Karachi after losing contact while flying over the Arabian Sea near Ormara in Balochistan, aviation sources told Truth Wire on Tuesday.

The missing aircraft is a 27-year-old Boeing 737 operated by a Pakistani cargo company. The sources added that contact with the aircraft was lost at 9:32pm during its flight from Sharjah to Karachi.

A search operation was launched immediately after communication with the aircraft was interrupted, according to the Pakistan Airports Authority (PAA) sources.

Flight tracking data showed the aircraft, flight TA1732, was cruising normally at an altitude of 35,000 feet and a speed of 790 kilometres per hour at 9:17pm when it encountered unusual circumstances.

The data indicated that the aircraft abruptly made a U-turn before entering a rapid descent.

Within five minutes, it had lost approximately 34,000 feet of altitude, eventually dropping to 1,100 feet while slowing to 211 kilometres per hour before disappearing from radar, FlightRadardata showed.

The Pakistan Airports Authority (PAA) confirmed that the cargo plane went missing after reporting a malfunction in its navigation system while airborne.

The Area Control Centre (ACC) immediately provided guidance to the crew following the report, it added.

The spokesperson said the aircraft disappeared from radar approximately 155 nautical miles west of Karachi. Radar and communication contact with the aircraft were lost simultaneously.

Following the incident, the Rescue Coordination Centre was activated immediately to coordinate response and search efforts, the PAA spokesperson added.

In 2010, a Russian cargo aircraft carrying eight people crashed in a residential area of Karachi shortly after taking off from the city’s airport.

The aircraft was heading to Khartoum in Sudan when it went down, killing all those on board.

The crash sparked fires in nearby buildings and triggered a large-scale rescue operation. The aircraft lost contact with air traffic control minutes after departure, according to officials at the time.