A 'dream' landing: World's largest cargo aircraft AN-225 Mriya makes technical halt in Hyderabad

The world's largest aircraft AN-225 Mriya landed for a technical halt at Hyderabad's Rajiv Gandhi International airport on Friday en route to Australia from Europe.

It is carrying a generator that weighs 116 tonnes. The six-engined aircraft Mriya, which means 'dream' in Russian, is the longest and heaviest airplane ever built, with a maximum takeoff weight of 640 tonnes.

World's largest cargo aircraft Antonov An-225 arrived at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, Shamshabad(Hyderabad) pic.twitter.com/BoaNEvAT0p

— ANI (@ANI_news) May 13, 2016

It was developed to transport the Soviet Braun space shuttle or other super-heavy jumbo sized cargo. According to estimates, the AN-225 can carry up to 250 tonnes of cargo in comparison to 157 tonnes capacity of double-deck Airbus A–380, the largest passenger aircraft in service. Mriya has 32 wheels spread across its oversized landing gear. The cargo compartment is pressurized that extends the aircraft transport capabilities, aircraft manufactures claim.

According to the company website, this unique transport airlifter was designed and constructed during 1984-1988. The aircraft has the spacious cargo compartment with length of 43,32 metres, width of 6.4 metres and height of 4.4 metres. The aircraft has set 240 world records, including for transportation of the heaviest cargo with mass of 253 tonnes, the heaviest single peace of cargo with mass of 186,7 tonnes as well as the longest cargo having length of 42,1 metre.