Boeing 737-400 freighter has gone missing in the Indian Ocean: See why?

A Boeing 737-400 freighter has gone missing in the Indian Ocean, just past the Gulf of Oman, after taking off from the United Arab Emirates.

Flight tracking data showed an extremely rapid descent, dropping approximately 35,000 feet in less than 2 minutes, before disappearing from radar entirely.

According to the officials, the cargo plane had five crew members aboard when it went missing off the Pakistan port of Karachi late Tuesday after rapidly descending and losing contact with air traffic controllers.

The K2 Airways cargo plane (AP-BOI) was reportedly headed for Karachi, Pakistan.

According to aviation expert Imran Aslam, It’s not currently known what would have caused the plane to go down. He said that even though an aircraft suffers an engine failure, it would normally continue gliding rather than plunge suddenly. 

‘’I still cannot understand how the plane went down so abruptly instead of gliding,’’ Imran said.

According to the K2 Airways website, it is a private cargo airline based in Karachi and was established in May 2018.

A search and rescue operation has been launched. Authorities said Pakistan’s military and civilian authorities had deployed multiple air and sea assets for the search and rescue operation. 

According to multiple officials, the Pakistan Navy frigate PNS Zulfiqar was quickly diverted to the area where contact with the aircraft was lost. They said the Pakistan Air Force had also deployed aircraft for the effort, while a Pakistan Navy ATR aircraft took off from Turbat to assist in the operation.

In May 2020 a Pakistani jetliner carrying 98 people crashed in a crowded neighborhood near the airport in Karachi, the capital of Sindh province, after an apparent engine failure during landing. All but one passenger died in the crash. Later, Pakistan’s government released a report saying human error on the part of the pilot

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 (March 8, 2014): A Boeing 777 carrying 239 passengers and crew vanished after a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Satellite data indicates it veered wildly off course and crashed into the Southern Indian Ocean. It remains one of the greatest mysteries in aviation.

Merpati Nusantara Airlines Vickers Viscount (November 10, 1971): A turboprop aircraft (registration PK-MVS) crashed into the Indian Ocean off the coast of Padang, West Sumatra, Indonesia, after the crew reported they could not reach their destination in severe weather. All 69 passengers and crew on board perished. 

VARIG Flight 967 (January 30, 1979): While it was en route from Narita, Japan, to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, this Boeing 707 cargo aircraft went missing over the Pacific/Southern waters after a deviation from its standard route. Though often associated with Pacific routes, the extensive search extended into broader oceanic tracking zones, and no trace of the plane was ever definitively found. 

Various Military Transport Losses: Other localized, unlocated disappearances have occasionally happened in the region, such as specific Indian Air Force transport flights (like the An-32 that went missing over the Bay of Bengal in 2016, which is an arm of the Indian Ocean