Cargo plane with five crew members onboard goes missing 155nm west of Karachi: PAA

• Boeing 737 lost contact during flight from Sharjah: sources.
• Aircraft makes sudden U-turn before rapid descent.
• Aviation authorities activate emergency response.

KARACHI: A cargo aircraft has gone missing approximately 155 nautical miles west of Karachi after losing contact, the Pakistan Airports Authority (PAA) said in a statement on late Tuesday.

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

Crew identified from flight documents

According to the flight’s general declaration, the aircraft was being flown by Captain Muhammad Rizwan Idrees, with Faisal Mahmood Jatoi serving as first officer. Muhammad Tofeeq Khan was on board as load master, while two aircraft engineers, Muhammad Hamid and Muhammad Arif Siddiqui, completed the crew.

Their identities were confirmed through official flight paperwork filed ahead of the aircraft’s departure from Sharjah

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, FlightRadar data showed.

The 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.

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

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.