Antonov An-140

Updated: October 2026 – It was supposed to inherit from the An-24, renew regional fleets from Kaliningrad to Kamchatka and, on the side, turn Iran into an aircraft manufacturer. In the end the Antonov An-140 remained a footnote: built in three countries, but completed only around three dozen times in total. That is exactly what makes it exciting for spotters. If you get an An-140 in your viewfinder today, you have caught one of the rarest turboprops of the present day. Here you will learn how the type came about, how to recognize it, what the Iranian IrAn-140 is all about and where examples still fly at all.

What is the Antonov An-140?

The An-140 is a twin-engine turboprop regional aircraft with up to 52 seats. It was developed by the Antonov design bureau in Kyiv, which worked on the project from 1993. The brief was clearly defined: the An-24s built in the 1960s and 1970s were reaching the end of their service life, and for thousands of kilometers of regional routes in the former Soviet Union a more modern aircraft was needed, with similar ruggedness but better economics.

The result was not a modernized An-24 but a largely new design. The basic concept remained familiar – high wing, two turboprops, undemanding in terms of infrastructure and runway quality – but fuselage, wings, engines and systems were newly designed. Only two pilots now sit in the cockpit, whereas the An-24 was still designed with a larger flight deck crew.

The prototype’s first flight took place on September 17, 1997. In April 2000 the type received its type certification from the Interstate Aviation Committee of the CIS, which also covered the An-140-100. Scheduled service was opened in March 2002 by the Ukrainian Odessa Airlines. The article Soviet airliners takes a broader look at Soviet and post-Soviet commercial aviation.

Technology: a helicopter heart and six-blade propellers

At a good 22.6 meters in length, the An-140 is somewhat shorter than the An-24; the wingspan of the base model is around 24.5 meters, and around 25.5 meters on the An-140-100 with its extended wing. The maximum takeoff weight is between a good 19 and 21.5 tonnes depending on version and source. That puts it in the class of the ATR 42, the Dash 8-300 or the Fokker 50.

The powerplant is the interesting part. The standard engine is the AI-30 Series 1 from Motor Sich of Zaporizhzhia, a licensed version of the Klimov TV3-117VMA-SBM1. You actually know the TV3-117 family from helicopter construction; for the An-140 it was developed into a turboprop with around 1,840 kW per side. The Pratt & Whitney Canada PW127A, which also powers ATR aircraft, was envisaged as a Western alternative. The engines drive broad six-blade propellers of around 3.6 meters diameter.

What the An-140 took over from its predecessor is the design for simple conditions:

• High wing: Propellers and engines sit far above the ground and are better protected on unpaved runways.
• Landing gear on the fuselage: The main landing gear retracts into side fuselage fairings. That keeps the nacelles compact and gives a wide, stable track.
• Little ground equipment: The type was intended to work even at small airfields with minimal infrastructure.
• Cruise speed up to around 575 km/h: noticeably faster than the An-24 with its roughly 450 km/h.

Built in three countries

The An-140 was designed as a cooperation project from the start. That matters for spotters, because designation, equipment and today’s operators differ depending on origin.

Production	Location	Period (approx.)	Aircraft completed (approx.)
Antonov / Kharkiv Aircraft Plant	Kharkiv, Ukraine	until 2005	around 11 to 12
Aviakor	Samara, Russia	mid-2000s to 2016	around a dozen
HESA (as IrAn-140)	Shahin Shahr near Isfahan, Iran	early 2000s to around 2015	around 10

The numbers vary slightly by source. The overall picture is clear, though: instead of the hoped-for hundreds, only around 33 to 35 aircraft were built in total.

Ukraine: Kharkiv

The first series aircraft were built at the Kharkiv aircraft plant, and one of the first went to the Russian IKAR Airlines. Ukrainian production, however, ended as early as 2005. Sources cite as background, among other things, the crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines aircraft in December 2005, in which the investigation found counterfeit parts in the instrumentation.

Russia: Aviakor in Samara

At Aviakor in Samara a Russian line emerged from the mid-2000s, increasingly with Russian components. A large part of the aircraft that were later still active was built here, including aircraft for the Russian military, such as naval aviation. Production ended in the mid-2010s, also because supplies from Ukraine fell away after 2014. The last aircraft was built in 2016 and delivered in 2017.

Iran: the IrAn-140

The most ambitious part of the program ran in Iran. HESA assembled the aircraft from Antonov kits from the early 2000s in Shahin Shahr near Isfahan; the first examples only entered scheduled service in 2011. A large series was planned, among other things for border surveillance and domestic traffic. In fact, according to common figures only around ten aircraft were completed, some of them as the IrAn-140-100 with the larger wing. For Iran the project was also politically important: a regional aircraft of its own despite Western sanctions.

The most important variants

Variant	Special feature
An-140	basic passenger version with up to 52 seats
An-140-100	increased wingspan, higher takeoff weight
An-140T / An-140S	military transport versions, the S with a larger cargo hatch
An-140TK	convertible cargo-passenger version
An-140 VIP	lounge version with up to 30 seats
IrAn-140 / IrAn-140-100	Iranian licensed production at HESA
HESA Simorgh	Iranian military transport based on the IrAn-140, unveiled in 2022

For identification in the field, the variant usually plays a minor role – here registration and operator help above all. How to assign country prefixes is explained in the article Aircraft country codes.

Accidents and the flight ban in Iran

The An-140’s short history is marked by several serious accidents. They are a major reason why the type never stepped out of its predecessor’s shadow:

• December 2002: A Ukrainian An-140 of Aeromist-Kharkiv crashed on approach to Isfahan, and all 44 people on board were killed.
• December 2005: An Azerbaijan Airlines aircraft crashed into the Caspian Sea shortly after takeoff in Baku, and all 23 occupants died. The cause is considered to be the simultaneous failure of the attitude indicators.
• February 2009: An IrAn-140-100 crashed during a training flight near Isfahan, and the five crew members were killed.
• August 2014: A Sepahan Airlines IrAn-140 crashed into a residential area shortly after takeoff from Tehran-Mehrabad, and around 40 people died.

After the 2014 accident the Iranian civil aviation authority imposed a flight ban on the type. The Ministry of Defense did declare shortly afterward that the type was certified, but the aircraft did not return to civil scheduled service. Series production at HESA was subsequently discontinued. In May 2022 HESA then presented the Simorgh, a military transport clearly built on the IrAn-140 – now explicitly as a cargo aircraft for the armed forces.

How to identify the An-140

There are a few twin-engine propeller high-wing aircraft. With three glances, though, you can reliably separate the An-140 from its relatives.

Feature	An-140	An-24	ATR 42	Il-114
Wing	high	high	high	low
Tail	conventional	conventional	T-tail	conventional
Main landing gear	fuselage fairing	in the nacelles	fuselage fairing	in the nacelles
Propeller blades	6	4	4 to 6 depending on version	6
Use today	very rare	rare	widespread	rare

A mix-up with the ATR 42 is especially likely, because both are high-wing aircraft with landing gear on the fuselage. The ATR’s T-tail, however, is clearly visible from any angle. The Ilyushin Il-114, in turn, is a low-wing aircraft and thus different from far away. You can find a detailed overview of propeller aircraft in the article Telling turboprops apart.

Who flies the An-140 today?

Of the roughly three dozen aircraft built, only a small part is still active. According to an overview as of the end of 2022, only about nine aircraft worldwide were in service, around twenty in storage. Most of the remaining fleet flies for Russian government operators: the Aerospace Forces and naval aviation use the Samara-built aircraft as liaison and transport aircraft. In the civil sector the Siberian Yakutia had individual examples, and in Ukraine the Motor Sich company airline flew the type for a time.

The Iranian IrAn-140s have disappeared from civil operation since the 2014 flight ban. Whether and to what extent the Simorgh military version flies can hardly be said reliably from the outside.

Where you can still catch an An-140

For spotters in central Europe the An-140 is practically out of reach. Russian aircraft have not been allowed to enter EU airspace since 2022, Ukrainian airspace is closed to civil traffic, and the Iranian aircraft are on the ground. Even before these restrictions, the type was an absolute exception in Western Europe.

Region	Chance of a hit	Why
Russia	low to medium	remnants of the fleet with military and government operators
Ukraine	very low	civil air traffic suspended
Iran	very low	civil IrAn-140 grounded since 2014
EU and Western Europe	practically zero	flight bans, no operators

Because the active aircraft are mostly used militarily, particularly strict rules apply to photography. In Russia and Iran you should know exactly what is allowed before you raise the camera. The articles Photography bans in Russia and Belarus and Countries with strict photography bans at airports give you the necessary overview. How to track military aircraft online is covered in the article Tracking military aircraft online.

Photo tips for the An-140

Which exposure times work for propellers is explained in the article Photographing propellers. How to put rare sightings in context is covered under Spotting rare aircraft.

Common mix-ups and how to rule them out

Conclusion

The An-140 is a lesson in how hard a solid aircraft can have it when markets, politics and supply chains don’t cooperate. Technically it was a sensible step beyond the An-24; economically and politically it was under bad omens from the start. For spotters it remains a type with clear features – six-blade propellers, landing gear on the fuselage, conventional tail – and a rarity that few aircraft of the present day reach.