Antonov An-225 Mrija. A journey through triumph, tragedy, and uncertain future

By the spring of 1994, including commercial transport and participation in exhibitions and air shows, the Antonov An-225 Mrija had accumulated over 671 hours of flight time and completed 339 flights. Since the aircraft's original purpose no longer existed, the process of civil certification was initiated so that it could fulfill a different, commercial role. And it had more than enough predispositions for this…

The collision with reality was painful. There were not enough orders for such services in the world for the plane to become a global mega-transporter. Therefore, one idea followed another: it was planned to rebuild it into a 3-deck passenger super-cruiser with a range of almost 10,000 km. Another idea was to turn it into a stationary hotel…

Ultimately, at the Hostomel airport near Kyiv, the An-225 became… a reservoir of spare parts for the An-124 fleet, with which it shared the vast majority of components.

Rebirth in 2000: An-225's second chapter

This would be the end of its history if not for the fact that in 2000, the plane was rebuilt, modernizing most of its systems, and certain modifications were made. Another flight in May 2001 opened the second chapter of Mrija's interesting life.

The undisputed successes of the machine from this period include not only the transport of a load weighing 247 tons on the Prague-Tashkent line in the summer of 2004 but also the transportation of a 189-ton generator from Germany to Armenia in 2009. To date, it is entered into the Guinness Book of Records for transporting the largest single cargo in the history of aviation - the largest item transported by air.

Record-Breaking Achievements

In the summer of 2010, the An-225 broke another world record by transporting from China to Denmark the longest cargo in the history of air transport: two wind turbine blades, each 43 m long (the cargo holds 43.35 m long, 6.4 m wide, and 4 m high, 4 m). In 2011, commissioned by France, it delivered humanitarian aid and equipment weighing 140 tons to Japan, affected by the tsunami.

During the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the An-225 recorded a number of spectacular successes, transporting large amounts of medical equipment from one end of the world to another, including the famous transport of “COVID-19 propaganda” (and most likely useless) masks to many countries. At the beginning of the pandemic, in the spring of 2020, in just a few days, the An-225 managed to exceed 1,500 tons of cargo transported on several flights.

Tragic end of Antonov An-225 Mrija. Destruction during war

On Sunday, January 9, 2022, the An-225 visited the Jasionka airport near Rzeszów, and it was the fifth landing of this machine in Poland. On February 5, it took off for the last time from Billund, Denmark, heading to its home airport Hostomel near Kyiv. It was supposed to undergo a major technical inspection there (including the disassembly of the drives), and therefore it was supposed to be unable to fly for some time.

In such a situation, the world's largest plane was caught in war. The Hostomel airport became an important target for the Russian army for the first combat operations against Ukraine, which took place there practically from February 24.

The hangar where the An-225 was stationed became a target for artillery and mortars of Russian troops. On February 27, the Ukrainian government confirmed that the An-225 was destroyed by Russian troops during fighting at the airport. After its capture, Russian propaganda TV published a report from outside the hangar, in which Ukrainians were accused of destroying the An-225.

The allegation is absurd and false not only in the sphere of facts related to the An-225 but also in the entire philosophy of conduct of Russian troops in Ukraine, striving for the total devastation of Ukrainian infrastructure in every field: technical, economic, cultural, educational, and social. The recording of this false “journalistic report” can be easily found on YouTube. On April 2, the Ukrainian Armed Forces regained control of the Hostomel airport, which allowed for confirmation and documentation of the destruction of the hangar and its main "tenant," i.e., Mrija.

Post-War initiatives and challenges

Later, rather strange information campaigns began that did not entirely fit into the usual, "non-war" logic. On the one hand, there were accusations against the company's management that, through conscious and deliberate actions, or negligence and omissions, it allowed the plane, unique in the world, to fail on the day of the outbreak of the war - and Ukraine was warned about this threat by the intelligence services of Western countries - to be evacuated to any foreign airport. This was done with a significant part of the potential concentrated in military bases from which soldiers and equipment were evacuated, moving them from the expected impact to areas not threatened by an attack.

Some of the equipment was also flown from this airport to Germany, some to Poland, avoiding damage and destruction. An-225 could also, but at that time it had one of its six engines removed. Was it possible to evacuate the plane anyway? With a bit of good will, probably yes, but historians will probably argue about it after the war...

The Ukrainian government, consistently looking for a patriotic bond that would build the unity and pride of its citizens, and seeing the An-225 as a symbol of the greatness and continuity of the country and a symbol of its civilizational status, declared its willingness to rebuild the plane based on the second, unfinished prototype. Later, there were concepts of rebuilding and restoring the first An-225, destroyed by the Russians, to a flightable condition.

To anyone who has seen the scale of destruction, this concept must seem absurd, or at least bold. Even later, information appeared that work on the reconstruction of the An-225 had already been started in a "secret center." There have also been social initiatives, which are worth mentioning, aimed at raising funds for the reconstruction of Mrija, including by supporting computer games and simulators in which Mrija appears in various formats.

If anyone is interested in the course of hostilities in Ukraine, they know perfectly well that this country has much more serious problems than rebuilding a prestigious - beyond any doubt - aircraft and, at the same time, a symbol of the greatness of Ukrainian technical thought and industry.

The aviation and armaments industry on the Dnipro, not only related to Antonov in Kyiv, still has great potential.

Today, it is necessary to build the ability to independently create such weapons systems that will allow Ukraine to acquire offensive capabilities necessary to liberate its territories and, at the same time, will not put Ukraine in conflict with those NATO countries that provide Ukraine with offensive missile weapons that can hit targets operational distance, i.e., up to 300-500 km, while meeting the requirement that these are not targets located on the territory of the Russian Federation.

Challenges and skepticism in An-225's future

"The idea of post-war reconstruction of the An-225, which could be possible, even with foreign money, also seems to be a long shot from today's perspective"
Antonov's former boss suggests.

Such an initiative was undertaken once, not so long ago, when in 2016, two years after Russia started the war in Donbas, Ukraine started talks with a potential Chinese investor, initially interested in completing the second copy of the An-225, which construction reached a very early stage (only the hull of the machine was ready). It was assumed that the design would be changed — the plane would receive a single vertical stabilizer (as in the An-124) and an additional rear loading ramp. It was assumed that the completion of this machine would require capital of approximately USD 300 million, which Ukraine was unable to provide, which is why it even considered giving the An-225 license to the Chinese. Of course, it ended in nothing.

And after the war? China, which has clearly sided with Russia in the current conflict, will certainly not be a partner for Ukraine. This is all the more true for the West, which is still committing huge resources to the military support of Ukraine and will be interested in committing even greater resources to the post-war reconstruction of this country.

Ukraine itself, whose infrastructure of all types (including communication, agriculture, energy, municipal, hydrotechnical, industrial and raw materials, educational and cultural) is being systematically and systematically devastated by the Russians, will have absolutely different priorities than in the next two or five years. Certainly more important than rebuilding a beautiful plane that would probably fly mainly "to cheer people's hearts," more important will be demining the country, rebuilding cities and villages, communication routes, hydrological systems with dams and ruined electricity, but also recovering many millions of citizens for the purposes of rebuilding the country, who emigrated during the war, taking care of hundreds of thousands of mutilated soldiers and civilians, providing care to the families of war victims, as well as rebuilding the potential of their army so as not to become the target of their neighbor's aggression again, integrating with Western standards in order to think about EU membership and NATO… It is difficult to imagine the reconstruction of the An-225 on this list of priorities.

The Future of An-225: economic viability?

In the light of all this, it seems less than likely that we will ever see the “Dream” above our heads again, as the An-225 Mrija is called in English. It's a pity, because it's a beautiful dream…