Islamabad, Pakistan. Relatives of the five crew members aboard a K2 Airways Boeing BA.N 737 cargo plane that crashed into the Arabian Sea off Pakistan on July 7 are urging an international search for the flight recorders to determine the cause.
Deep-water search
Debris from the freighter was recovered shortly after the crash, but the water in the area is about 3,000 metres deep.
A search for the recorders would be costly and likely require foreign assistance, according to aviation experts familiar with deep-water crashes, including Air France 447 in 2009.
The locator beacons on the 27-year-old aircraft were designed to transmit pings for only 30 days.
Investigation calls
Recovering the recorders could help establish whether a navigation system issue reported shortly before the crash was linked to a navigation component that relatives said had been replaced before the flight.
Pakistan has provided no public update on the search for a week. An industrial company with underwater search expertise told Reuters it had not heard of requests from Pakistan for assistance from foreign companies or navies.
“The search has to continue, and whatever resources can be deployed, locally and internationally, should be deployed,” Yashib Rizwan, eldest son of Captain Rizwan Idris, told Reuters. “For us a transparent investigation is key.”
Engineer Muhammad Arif Siddiqui’s son, Abdur Rafay Siddiqui, also called for international assistance if needed.
Family and official response
Both families have held funeral prayers after losing hope that the bodies would be recovered.
Pakistan’s government did not respond to questions about whether it would seek foreign assistance to search for the plane.
K2, which lost its only aircraft in the crash, did not respond to requests for comment.