Families want to find the black boxes.

BY Mahnoor | 20-07-2026

KARACHI: Pakistani authorities are thinking about hiring foreign deep-sea rescue experts to help recover the missing K2 Airways cargo plane that crashed into the Arabian Sea near Ormara. They are still trying to find the crew, the plane’s body, engines, and the black box.

Sources say the Bureau of Aircraft Safety Investigation, which is leading the crash investigation, has suggested to the government that they should hire experienced international salvage companies for this technically difficult deep-sea recovery operation.

The government decided to work with expert global rescue teams to prepare for a better underwater recovery.

On Sunday, the Pakistan Navy and Pakistan Maritime Security Agency kept working together in the crash area near Ormara, Balochistan coast.

Sources said they decided to keep searching non-stop using navy ships in the area.

So far, searchers have found the plane’s tail and a bag belonging to engineer Hamid. They are still trying to find the crew, the main body of the plane, engines, and the flight’s black box.

Relatives want countries worldwide to search for the flight’s black boxes to figure out why it crashed.

The families affected also got a formal reply from the Prime Minister’s Portal after asking for help. Through this system, a person from a human rights group in Karachi was chosen to work with and help the families.

The families also sent a request about the crash using the Senate of Pakistan’s website.

Parts of the K2 Airways cargo plane were found soon after the July 7 crash, but the water there is around 3,000 meters deep.

Finding the black boxes would cost a lot and need help from other countries, say experts who know about deepwater crashes like the Air France 447 crash in 2009.

The 27-year-old plane’s beacons can only send signals for 30 days. Getting the recorders might show if a navigation problem reported before the crash was linked to a part that family members say was replaced before the flight.

Officials have not told the public anything about the search for a week. A company that knows how to search underwater told Reuters that it did not hear any requests from officials for help from companies or navies in other countries.

“The search must go on. Whatever help can be used, from local or other countries, should be used,” said Yashib Rizwan, the oldest son of Captain Rizwan Idris. He told Reuters, “For us, it is very important that the investigation is open and honest.”

Engineer Muhammad Arif Siddiqui’s son, Abdur Rafay Siddiqui, also asked for help from other countries if needed.

Both families held funeral prayers after they lost hope that the bodies would be found.

The government did not answer questions about whether it will ask other countries for help finding the plane.

K2, which lost its only plane in the crash, did not reply to requests for comment.

One of the plane’s two inertial reference units (IRUs), which provide information about the plane’s location, speed, and direction to the cockpit displays, was replaced in Sharjah, said the captain’s son Yashib Rizwan.

“If you have a problem with your IRU, you cannot trust the instruments,” said John Goglia, a former US National Transportation Safety Board member. He added that pilots flying at night over the ocean without visual cues could have trouble figuring out the plane’s orientation.

Plane crashes often happen due to many reasons, and it is not yet known if changing the IRU is linked to the crash.

A problem with an inertial reference system helped cause the 2007 Adam Air crash in Indonesia. Investigators found that the pilots focused too much on fixing wrong information, did not see a sharp right turn, and lost control before the plane fell into the sea. All 102 people on board died.

Signals from Adam Air’s black boxes were found around three weeks after the crash during a search helped by the US Navy. But getting the recorders from about 2,000 meters of water took many months and cost millions of dollars, using a special remote-controlled vehicle.

US aviation expert Todd Curtis said on the “Flight Safety Detectives” podcast that Pakistan probably won’t do a similar recovery unless there is a strong reason, because the K2 plane was an old cargo jet, not a current passenger plane.

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