Families of crew aboard crashed cargo plane face agonising wait

REUTERS -- The family of Faisal Jatoi, the co-pilot missing with four others after their cargo plane crashed into the Arabian Sea, faced an agonising wait for news on Thursday, as rescuers continued their search.

Jatoi was co-piloting a K2 Airways Boeing 737 freighter from Sharjah in the UAE to Karachi on Tuesday night when it went down off Pakistan’s southern coast.

Rescuers found the wreckage in a deep-sea search operation on Wednesday.

Jatoi’s father-in-law, Ghulam Nabi Bahrani, said the family became alarmed when they could not reach him, and a Google search showed them the word “crash”.

“That moment felt like doomsday for us,” Bahrani told Reuters at his home in Karachi.

Jatoi has a wife and a two-year-old son.

The aircraft, a 27-year-old Boeing 737-400 converted freighter, spent 10 days in Sharjah for repairs after delivering cargo, awaiting a spare part from the United States before the crew could return, Bahrani said.

It reported a navigational problem at 9:18 pm on its way to Karachi, the Pakistan Airports Authority said, while Flightradar24 data showed erratic altitude changes before a steep descent.

Wreckage was found 53 nautical miles (98 km) south of Ormara port on Wednesday, and navy and maritime security teams are searching for the flight recorders.

K2 Airways said the five people on board were two pilots, two engineers and one support staffer. Their status has not been officially declared.

Deep-water search

A Pakistani aviation expert said the recovery could be among the most difficult in the country’s recent history, with water depths in parts of the Arabian Sea ranging from about 2,500 to more than 3,500 metres.

Strong currents, poor visibility, uneven seabed terrain and changing sea states could complicate efforts to recover submerged wreckage and flight recorders, said the expert, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to discuss the matter publicly.