The flight path passed close to an active conflict zone where clashes between Iran and the USA had resumed on the same day
By Imran Aslam Khan
Everything appeared normal until the crew of K2 Airways Flight 1732 (KTA 1732), a Boeing 737-400 registered as AP-BOI, reported navigation systems failure at 0918 PM (0418 UTC) on 7 July 2026. While operating a ferry flight from Sharjah to Karachi, the crew requested heading guidance from air traffic control.
The aircraft had undergone maintenance in Sharjah prior to departure. This indicates that some maintenance work was carried out before the ill-fated flight.
Three minutes after the initial distress call, the aircraft began a rapid plunge toward the sea, reaching a descent rate of 22,400 feet per minute as recorded by Flightradar24 — a rate far exceeding even dual-engine failure scenarios, as commercial aircraft are designed to glide rather than descend like a stone resulting in the death of all five flight crew members on board.
Captain Muhammad Rizwan Idrees had spent most of his career as a rotary-wing (helicopter) pilot, while First Officer Faisal Jatoi was at the early stage of his airline career.
Four speculative causes appear most plausible for such a rapid and catastrophic loss of control:
1. Inertial Reference Unit (IRU) Failure Coupled with Spatial Disorientation
This remains the leading speculation. The crew reported navigation system malfunctions and requested directional guidance from Karachi Area Control.
An IRU failure involves a critical malfunction of the Inertial Reference Unit a core avionics system that uses gyroscopes and accelerometers to provide the aircraft’s attitude (pitch, roll, yaw), position, and velocity. When it fails, it can feed corrupt data or no data at all to the primary flight displays, autopilot, and navigation systems.
The reported erratic altitude excursions a 5,000-foot descent followed by a 6,000-foot climb loss of airspeed and subsequent stall and entry into a graveyard spiral or spin strongly suggest IRU failure combined with spatial disorientation and a catastrophic breakdown in Crew Resource Management (CRM). These typical Swiss Cheese failures are particularly dangerous over the sea at night in cloudy conditions, with scattered thunderstorms reported up to 41,000 feet cloud ceilings.
Additionally, more than 20 aircraft reported GPS spoofing along the route and near the crash site. The flight path passed close to an active conflict zone where clashes between Iran and the USA had resumed on the same day. Military activity in such areas pose a significant risks to civil aviation, as states do not always issue timely NOTAMs or divert civilian traffic when air defenses are activated. A recent example is Azerbaijan Airlines Flight J2 8243, which was struck over Grozny when Russian air defenses were active against Ukrainian drones but failed to properly notify or divert civilian traffic.
2. In-flight Structural Breakup
A sudden plunge from cruising altitude could occur if the aircraft broke apart in mid-air. However, the initial erratic descent of 5,000 feet followed by a 6,000-foot climb and a subsequent right turn suggest the aircraft was still intact at that stage. Excessive g-forces applied during recovery attempts may then have caused mid-air structural failure. While theoretically possible, this scenario does not fully align with the reported navigation failure unless multiple cascading system failures occurred — again pointing toward Scenario 1.
3. Runaway Trim or Flight Control Jamming
The sequence of a 5,000-foot descent, 6,000-foot climb, and final death spiral could indicate runaway trim or control surface jamming. Runaway trim occurs when the elevator trim motor malfunctions, causing uncontrolled nose-up or nose-down movements. However, at high altitude, crews generally have sufficient time to identify the issue and disconnect the trim system. Having personally experienced this emergency, the author considers it unlikely to have caused the total loss of control in this case.
4. Weight and Balance / Center of Gravity Shift
A major in-flight shift in the aircraft’s center of gravity (CG) due to unsecured cargo can lead to sudden stalls or unrecoverable attitudes. This scenario can largely be ruled out, as the aircraft was operating a ferry flight with no passengers or cargo.
Conclusion
At present, IRU failure combined with spatial disorientation and catastrophic Crew Resource Management failure appears to be the most probable cause.
This theory gains further weight when compared with the Adam Air Flight 574 crash in Indonesia in 2007, which also involved a Boeing 737-400 with a history of repeated IRU malfunctions.
On 1 January 2007, Adam Air Flight 574, a Boeing 737-400 operating a domestic service from Jakarta to Manado via Surabaya, crashed into the Makassar Strait near Polewali, Sulawesi. All 102 people on board perished in what remains the deadliest accident involving a Boeing 737-400 and the deadliest known crash attributed to IRU malfunction.
The Indonesian investigation determined that the pilots became preoccupied with troubleshooting the Inertial Reference Unit (IRU). The autopilot disconnected due to erratic IRU inputs — a built-in safety feature designed to prompt manual control. By the time the crew recognized the developing anomaly, the aircraft had entered a steep 100-degree right bank. Their recovery attempts, which subjected the aircraft to loads of up to 3.5 g, resulted in structural failure and in-flight breakup.
The final investigation report on Adam Air Flight 574 may offer valuable leads and lessons for the investigators of K2 Airways Flight 1732.
