World’s Largest Working Aircraft Destroyed in Fighting, Confirms Ukraine Govt, Vows to Rebuild

The sole working Antonov-225 Cossack was confirmed lost by the Ukrainian government on Sunday night, ending days of speculation about the status of the jumbo aircraft amid heavy fighting at its home base, but — perhaps remarkably — the Ukrainian government has vowed to rebuild.

The iconic sextuple-engined An-225 was destroyed in fighting at Kyiv’s Antonov / Gostomel airport last week, the Ukrainian government has now confirmed. Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister confirmed the loss, which had been the subject of rumour and speculation for days since Russia made multiple attempts to capture Antonov airport on the outskirts of Kyiv, reportedly part of their war plan to use the strip to land large volumes of troops to assault the city.

Despite being a lone operating Soviet-designed and built aircraft, the An-225 is iconic among aircraft for both being — until last week — the largest flying aircraft in the world, and for being a regularly-working heavy-lift freighter often finding itself in the news for moving unusual loads. Originally designed for the Soviet space programme, more recently it was used to withdraw major military equipment including helicopters during the Western withdrawal from Afghanistan, has delivered train cars, and at the start of the pandemic even airlifted a mammoth consignment of masks from China to Germany.

The aircraft could airlift a record 250 tons and the loss of its unique airlift capacity will likely be felt in the future. Ukranian defence industry association Ukroboronprom reported Sunday that it was unable to simply fly away to avoid fighting last week because at the time of the invasion, the An-225 was undergoing repairs.

While the Ukrainian government’s vow to rebuild the aircraft in the wake of its loss in a hangar fire may seem extraordinary, it is not as impossible as it may seem. While the An-225 was the only one of its kind in flight, there was a second airframe under construction at the time of the fall of Soviet Russia. Still located in Kyiv, the second An-225 has been worked on periodically since, and as recently as 2016 there was an appeal for funding to get the aircraft completed.

One unrealised, but sometimes discussed possibility for the An-225 — which could be built into the design should the second airframe be completed in future — is its original intended use for assisting space-flight. China expressed interest in using the aircraft in the past to help launch satellites, and as early as the 1990s the United Kingdom explored the possibility of using it to launch a British space shuttle.

Germany’s Bild estimates the cost of repair at three billion dollars, although a more conservative estimate of $450 million has been reported for simply completing the spare airframe.