City mourns K2 crash victims amid lingering mystery

Funeral prayers in absentia offered for crew members; search for black box, missing crew continues

KARACHI:

Even as the wreckage of the ill-fated K2 Airways cargo plane has been recovered and brought to Karachi, hopes of piecing together the cause of the crash remain up in the air, with rescuers yet to locate the aircraft's black box or recover the bodies of the crew.

According to sources, the recovered debris of the Boeing 737 cargo aircraft, which crashed into the Arabian Sea about 53 nautical miles off Ormara on Tuesday night, has been shifted from Balochistan to Karachi. However, officials said the recovered wreckage is insufficient for investigators to determine the cause of the accident.

Salvage and rescue operations continued on Sunday despite the weekly holiday. Divers searched the waters around the suspected crash site while aerial surveillance was also maintained, but no trace of the flight data recorder or the crew had been found by the time of filing this report.

Meanwhile, funeral prayers in absentia were offered in Karachi for crew members believed to have lost their lives in the crash.

The ghaibana namaz-e-janaza of aircraft engineer Muhammad Arif Siddiqui was held in Gulistan-e-Jauhar, led by his son, Abdul Rafi. The prayers were attended by Acting Jamaat-e-Islami Karachi chief Muslim Parvez, party office-bearers, family members, relatives, neighbours and a large number of party workers.

Speaking to reporters after the prayers, Muslim Parvez said every soul ultimately returns to its Creator. He said residents of the area bore witness to Siddiqui's good character and prayed that Allah grant him the highest place in the Hereafter. He expressed concern over the failure to recover the crew's bodies and the aircraft's black box several days after the crash, saying the government's efforts to search the sea had been inadequate. He termed the aircraft's sudden disappearance from radar a major tragedy and called for a complete, transparent and impartial investigation into the accident. He also urged the government to utilise all available resources to recover the bodies so that the bereaved families could find closure.

Separately, the ghaibana namaz-e-janaza of the aircraft's captain, Capt Rizwan Idris, was offered after Asr prayers at Falcon Complex in Malir Cantonment on Sunday. A large number of relatives and residents attended the funeral prayer, along with serving and retired Pakistan Air Force officers, including the Air Officer Commanding South, the Base Commander Malir, and members of the civil aviation community. Participants also offered condolences to the captain's family, including his sons, who had arrived from Germany.

The funeral prayer in absentia for aircraft engineer Muhammad Arif Siddiqui was also attended by a large number of residents and Jamaat-e-Islami leaders, including Muslim Parvez, District East chief Naeem Akhtar and Information Secretary Zahid Askari. The funeral prayer in absentia for the aircraft's second engineer, Muhammad Hamid, is scheduled to be held after Maghrib prayers on Monday at Rim Jhim Tower in Safora.