Antonov An-225 Mriya

Updated: October 2026 – Anyone who has seen it live once never forgets the moment: six engines howl up at the same time, an 84-meter fuselage starts to roll, and at the back two fins reach into the sky. For over three decades, the Antonov An-225 Mriya was the aircraft spotters drove across Europe for. Since February 2022, it no longer exists. This page tells how the one-of-a-kind aircraft came to be, what it could do, how to recognize it reliably on old photos – and which giants you can get in front of your lens today instead.

What was the Antonov An-225?

The An-225 was a six-engine heavy-lift transport from the Antonov design bureau in Kyiv. The order came from the Soviet Union in the 1980s: they wanted an aircraft that could carry the Buran space shuttle and large parts of the Energia launch vehicle from the factory to the launch site – much as the Americans carried their space shuttles on a modified Boeing 747. The load was intended to go inside or piggyback on top of the fuselage.

Instead of designing from scratch, Antonov enlarged its already flying heavy freighter, the An-124 Ruslan. The fuselage was lengthened at the front and rear, and the wing center section was enlarged so that a third engine fit on each side. At the back, the aircraft got a completely new twin tail. The An-124’s heavy rear ramp was dropped to save weight; the An-225 was loaded only through the upward-hinging nose.

The first flight took place on December 21, 1988. Already the following summer, the Mriya appeared at the 1989 Paris Air Show with a Buran on its back – an image still regarded as one of the most spectacular scenes in aviation history. In 1990, it flew a demonstration at Farnborough.

From space transporter to charter freighter

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Buran program ended too, and the Mriya lost its purpose. From 1994, it sat mothballed in Ukraine; its engines were removed and reused on An-124s. Around the turn of the millennium, Antonov decided to get the one-off aircraft ready for the commercial heavy-lift market.

After a modernization, the permitted takeoff weight rose from 600 to 640 tons. On May 23, 2001, the An-225 received its type certificate for civil use, and on January 3, 2002, it set off on its first commercial job – in Stuttgart. The operator was Antonov Airlines, which leased the aircraft worldwide for special cargo: generators, turbines, mining machinery, relief supplies.

Year	Event
1988	First flight on December 21
1989	Appearance in Paris with the Buran space shuttle on top of the fuselage
1994	Placed in storage, engines go to the An-124 fleet
2001	Type certificate on May 23, world record with 253.82 t of payload on September 11
2002	First commercial flight from Stuttgart on January 3
2009	At the time the heaviest single piece ever carried by air cargo, a power plant generator
2010	Longest air cargo: two rotor blades of 42.1 m each
2020	Relief flights with medical supplies from China during the COVID-19 pandemic
2022	Last job in early February, destruction at Hostomel on February 27

Records that nobody will break soon

Over its life, the An-225 set well over 200 world records. Some of them are tangible even for non-engineers:

• September 11, 2001: With 253.82 tons of payload, the Mriya flew a 1,000-kilometer closed circuit and thereby set a record for the heaviest total load carried in an aircraft.
• August 2009: A generator for a gas-fired power plant in Armenia was at the time the heaviest single piece ever carried by air cargo. Depending on the source, it weighed between 187 and just under 190 tons. The flight started in Germany, at Frankfurt-Hahn Airport.
• June 2010: Two wind turbine rotor blades of 42.1 meters each flew from Tianjin in China to Denmark – the longest pieces ever transported by air cargo.

The cargo hold measured around 43 meters in length, 6.4 meters in width and 4.4 meters in height.

How to recognize the Mriya on photos

You won’t see the An-225 live anymore, but it shows up constantly in photos, videos and old logbooks. Especially with pictures from a long distance or of poor quality, beginners like to confuse it with the An-124. Three looks are enough for a reliable identification.

As always, the final confirmation comes from the registration. In Soviet times, the Mriya wore the registration CCCP-82060, later UR-82060. If this identifier is on the fuselage, the matter is clear – a second example never took off. You can read more about how registrations are built and what the UR prefix reveals in the articles on aircraft registrations and country prefixes.

An-225, An-124 or something else entirely?

Anyone who sees a large freighter with a high-mounted wing has several candidates in mind. The finder helps you narrow it down – on old photos too.

The Ilyushin Il-76 and the Lockheed C-130 Hercules also have a shoulder wing, but are much smaller. On passenger jets like the Airbus A380 or the Boeing 747-8, the wing sits low on the fuselage – mix-ups are hardly possible there. A general overview of freighters is provided by the guide How to recognize cargo aircraft.

The Mriya in Germany

For German spotters, the An-225 was never an everyday guest, but not a stranger either. Its first commercial job started on January 3, 2002 at Stuttgart Airport. In 2009, it lifted off from Frankfurt-Hahn Airport with the record-setting generator. And at Leipzig/Halle Airport, it was a guest several times to load power plant turbines.

Such visits regularly drew many onlookers. The aircraft was big enough to look impressive even from a long distance, and word of its arrivals spread quickly in forums and tracking communities. Many spotters know the type only from such special missions – the photos taken back then are correspondingly valuable.

Leipzig plays a role in the story to this day: according to media reports, before the invasion there was a recommendation to move the Mriya to Leipzig as a precaution. That did not happen. Ukrainian investigators later accused the then Antonov management of negligence.

Destruction at Hostomel

In early February 2022, the An-225 flew its last job: COVID-19 test kits from Tianjin in China via Bishkek to Billund in Denmark. On February 5, it returned to its home base, the factory airport Hostomel (Antonov Airport) northwest of Kyiv. There it stood in its hangar.

With the start of the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022, Hostomel airport became the scene of heavy fighting. On February 27, 2022, it became known that the Mriya had been destroyed in the process; the hangar had caught fire. First images of the wreck appeared in early March, followed by aerial photos after the Russian troops withdrew.

What spotters can still see today

The Mriya itself is history. A few of its traces can still be experienced, though – and some giants keep flying.

Rare guests like the An-124 don’t arrive on a schedule, but on demand. So keep an eye on flight tracking and flight plans; how that works with ADS-B is explained in the guide to flight tracking with ADS-B. Where you may legally stand at an airport is clarified in the article Is plane spotting allowed?.

Documenting old Mriya photos properly

Many spotters still have pictures of the An-225 on a hard drive somewhere, or even on slides. These shots are real historical documents today. A few points make them more valuable:

How to record sightings systematically is shown in the article on the spotter logbook. For older or noisy shots, take a look at the guide Editing aircraft photos.

Common misidentifications

How strongly such giants stir up the air behind them and why controllers plan larger spacing behind them is explained in the article on wake turbulence and separation.

Conclusion

The An-225 Mriya was an aircraft that really should never have existed: built for a space program that ended shortly afterward, mothballed for years and then, after all, becoming the most sought-after heavy-lift freighter in the world. For spotters, every landing was an event, and it remains one in memory. Today what counts are old photos, the An-124 as the closest relative and the hope of a rebuild.