Another one of the top stories in 2022 was the destruction of one of Ukraine’s national treasures, the giant Antonov An-225, by many metrics the world’s largest plane. Built to transport the Soviet Union’s Space Shuttle, called Buran, the An-225 was nicknamed Mryia (for Dream). But when Russian forces invaded Ukraine earlier this year, they hit the airport where the plane is housed. Whether or not the giant was intentionally destroyed or not is not known and maybe never will be. And early on, there was hope that the plane somehow escaped with repairable damage, but later photographs show that it was destroyed where it sat in its hangar. Most of the tooling used to originally build the plane 40 years ago still exists, reportedly, but the billion-dollar effort to build another An-225 at this point is also merely a dream.
Antonov An-225 Destroyed
Key Takeaways:
- Ukraine's Antonov An-225 'Mryia', the world's largest plane and a national treasure, was destroyed in 2022.
- Russian forces attacked the airport where the plane was housed during their invasion of Ukraine.
- Despite initial hopes of repairable damage, later photographs confirmed the plane's total destruction.
- Rebuilding the An-225 would be a "billion-dollar effort" currently considered an unrealistic dream, even if original tooling still exists.
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