Funeral prayers in absentia held for missing K2 Airways officer
K2 Airways Flight 1732, a Boeing 737-400 freighter, lost contact with air traffic control on July 7 while flying from Sharjah to Karachi, roughly 155 nautical miles west of the city.
The missing crew was identified as Captain Muhammad Rizwan Idris, First Officer Faisal Jatoi, flight engineers Muhammad Hamid and Muhammad Arif Siddiqui, and aircraft loader Muhammad Taufiq Khan.
Jatoi’s father-in-law, Ghulam Nabi Bahrani, said the family had been in regular contact with him while he was in Sharjah and that he had called his wife shortly before the flight departed. K2 Airways said in a statement that it continued to pray earnestly for the safety of its colleagues as search operations proceeded.
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Funeral prayers in absentia have been held across Karachi in recent days for crew members believed to have lost their lives in the crash. The ghaibana namaz-e-janaza for the aircraft’s captain, Rizwan Idris, was offered after Asr prayers at Falcon Complex in Malir Cantonment, attended by serving and retired Pakistan Air Force officers including the Air Officer Commanding South.
Separately, funeral prayers in absentia for flight engineer Muhammad Arif Siddiqui were held in Gulistan-e-Jauhar, led by his son and attended by Jamaat-e-Islami Karachi office-bearers and a large number of residents.
A similar funeral prayer for the aircraft’s second engineer, Muhammad Hamid, was held after Maghrib prayers at Rim Jhim Tower in Safora.
Officials have cautioned that the crash site lies in waters around 3,000 metres deep, meaning specialised deep-sea equipment may be needed to locate the aircraft’s main fuselage.
The crew had reported a navigation system issue minutes before the aircraft entered a rapid, erratic descent, dropping from a cruising altitude before radar and radio contact were lost. The 27-year-old freighter, registration AP-BOI, was K2 Airways’ only aircraft, leaving the Karachi-based cargo carrier without a plane to fly following the crash.
