Pakistan enlists foreign experts to search for K2 Airways plane — The Express Tribune
Pakistan has stepped up contacts with foreign specialists and international companies to determine how to conduct a deep-sea operation to search for the flight recorders, wreckage and flight crew members of a K2 Airways cargo plane. According to The Express Tribune, the aircraft is believed to be lying at a depth of about 3,000 meters in the sea near Ormara, Pakistan.
Search at great depth
The aircraft of the private domestic cargo carrier crashed into the sea on July 7 this year after encountering adverse conditions near Ormara. According to the publication's sources, the beacon transmitter installed on the flight recorder stopped transmitting signals about a month after the crash, complicating the search.
Previously, the Pakistan Navy used specialized equipment and side-scan sonar and identified a possible location of the recorder on the seabed. The area was scanned using acoustic signals at a depth of about 3,000 meters, but further work requires more sophisticated equipment and expertise in deep-sea search and recovery operations.
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Sonars and underwater vehicles
The proposed operation envisages creating a three-dimensional model of the seabed using a multibeam echo sounder. The technology may help determine the terrain, depth and possible obstacles in order to narrow the search area for wreckage.
Autonomous underwater vehicles equipped with sonars, cameras and other sensors may be used to survey the seabed. Remotely operated underwater vehicles controlled from a support vessel may inspect objects up close and, where possible, recover small fragments or place specialized equipment near the wreckage.
The use of a magnetometer to detect large metal objects through changes in the magnetic field is also being considered. Search teams may use a towed acoustic beacon locator, but its effectiveness is limited because the recorder's transmitter has stopped operating. Specialized deep-sea vessels with winches, cranes and underwater systems may be needed for work at such depth. According to sources, the company owning the cargo aircraft is to pay 50% of the search costs.
