A cargo plane went missing near Pakistan on Tuesday but was found after a 12-hour search.

Flight data shows that the plane rapidly descended before losing contact with air traffic control.

The Boeing 737 was carrying five crew members.

After 12 hours of searching, Pakistani authorities said they had located the cargo plane that went missing while flying over the Arabian Sea on Tuesday.

The K2 Airways Boeing 737 disappeared from radar about 80 minutes into its two-hour flight from Sharjah, UAE, to Karachi, Pakistan. Authorities said it was recovered 53 nautical miles south of Ormara, a port city on Pakistan's Arabian coast.

Three minutes before crashing, the pilots reported a "navigational system issue," and were guided by air traffic control in Karachi, the Pakistan Airports Authority said in an X post.

Data from Flightradar24 appears to show it dropped in altitude, climbed, and then suddenly plunged at 22,400 feet per minute.

At altitude, an airliner typically does not descend faster than 3,000 feet per minute.

A search-and-rescue operation was conducted at sea by various agencies, the Pakistan Airports Authority said. Wreckage photos show parts of the fuselage, tail, and other systems.

K2 Airways, a Karachi-based cargo airline, said in a Facebook post that it was cooperating with government agencies for the investigation.

It shared the names of five crew members, including a pilot, a first officer, a load master, and two engineers.

According to its website, the 737 was the only airplane in its fleet.

Boeing did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside regular US working hours.

Registered as AP-BOI, the aircraft had been flying for over 27 years. It first carried passengers for Russia's Aeroflot in 1999 and later for Garuda Indonesia. In 2011, it was converted to a freighter and operated by several carriers until K2 leased it in 2024.

Representatives for K2 Airways and the Pakistan Airports Authority did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Pakistan has witnessed some severe plane crashes in the past two decades. In 2020, an Airbus A320, operated by Pakistan International Airlines, crashed near Jinnah International Airport in Karachi, killing 98 people.

In 2019, a Pakistan Army military plane crashed into a city in the country's northern city of Rawalpindi, killing five crew members and 13 civilians on the ground.

And in 2010, an Airblue flight crashed north of the capital, Islamabad, killing more than 150 people on board.

If you enjoyed this story, be sure to follow Business Insider on Yahoo.