What’s The Latest With The Potential Rebuild?

With a maximum takeoff weight of more than 1.4 million pounds, the Antonov An-225 Mriya was the heaviest commercial aircraft ever built. The An-225, at one point in time, held more than a hundred records, including the heaviest load in history, accommodating the longest items, among others.

Photo: Drop Of Light | Shutterstock

The aircraft was destroyed in the Russia-Ukraine war, much to the disappointment of a lot of aviation lovers. But in recent times, there has been plenty of news about the possibility of rebuilding this aircraft. How far has the potential for the rebuilding of the Antonov An-225 materialized? Let’s find out.

Rebuilding the giant

In the Ukrainian language, the word “Mriya” translates to a “dream”. Following the destruction of the aircraft in the Russia-Ukraine war, the manufacturer of the aircraft tweeted, “The dream will never die”.

Diwas Pokhrel, an aerospace engineer who has worked in the helicopter industry in Nepal and someone who studied at Irkutsk National Technical University, talked to Simple Flying about how engineers like him around Russia would go to see the Mriya take-off:

“Obviously as a student in Russia in the aughties, especially the ones like us who were working on a wind-tunnel experiment, I would go to Ukraine to see the An-225 because we couldn’t quite believe that the An-225 could take off. Sometimes you’d see aeronautical engineers like me gasp in disbelief seeing this monster take to the skies. After hearing that the aircraft was destroyed in the war, there was a Mriya-shaped hole in the heart of avgeeks (like me) around the world”

Photo: Jose Luis Stephens / Shutterstock

But after the aircraft was destroyed, the manufacturer, Antonov, laid out some plans to restore the aircraft. The cost of reconstruction was expected to be around $500 million. In 2022, even CNN confirmed the plans of rebuilding the Mriya:

“The possibility of attracting funding from various sources is being considered and proposals from many organizations that are ready to join the project are being reviewed. The program is developing in the direction of carrying out an expert assessment of these units, for subsequent calculations and design works immediately after the victory of Ukraine.”

However, before this possibility surfaced, Ukroboronprom, the Ukrainian state defense company responsible for managing Antonov, stated that the An-225 would be rebuilt at Russia’s expense:

“The restoration is estimated to take over 3 billion USD and over five years..Our task is to ensure that these costs are covered by the Russian Federation, which has caused intentional damage to Ukraine’s aviation and the air cargo sector.”

Photo: Alfonso Lozano del Rey/Shutterstock

The An-225 wasn’t the only aircraft destroyed in the war. Some of the other aircraft that suffered substantial damage, as reported by aviospace.org, included:

• Ka-52 attack helicopter
• Mil Mi-24 helicopter
• Sukhoi Su-27 fighter jet

Plans exist but no confirmations, yet

After the initial plans for rebuilding the aircraft, which have been stalled for almost two years now, the possibility of the aircraft being reinstated has surfaced again. Aerotime.aero reported that the plans for rebuilding the An-225 had resurfaced but no one can quite lay out the specifics of how such a mammoth project is being undertaken:

“Ukraine has once again confirmed plans to rebuild the Antonov An-225 Mriya giant cargo aircraft, according to Ukraine’s news agency Ukrinform, which quoted David Lomdzharia, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of state-owned defense conglomerate Ukroboronprom. Lomdzharia reportedly made the statement on the sidelines of the NATO Summit, which is taking place in Washington DC between July 9-11, 2024. The Ukrainian official refused to provide any additional details about the project or its expected timeframe.”

How much of a reconstruction is needed to get the An-225 ready for operations?

Last year, photos of the An-225 surfaced on the internet and revealed that the aircraft was devoid of a nose and wings. The rear fuselage of the aircraft had been removed, and its double rear empennage was absent too. It was believed that the An-225 had been disassembled, and its signature features were nowhere to be seen.

The front of the aircraft suffered heavy damage during the Russian strikes. A photo taken in August 2023 revealed a small amount of debris, which bore the signature livery in the colors of the Ukrainian flag next to two surviving aircraft.

Photo: OPIS Zagreb / Shutterstock

Here’s a timeline of the An-225 Mriya, and the eventual destruction and potential rebuilding plans that followed:

But how exactly was the An-225 destroyed?

It is clear that the aircraft was destroyed in the Russia-Ukraine war, but some people felt that an aircraft as rare as the An-225 needed an extra layer of protection. Major Dmytro Antonov, who is an An-225 pilot, said he felt that there was some negligence on the part of Antonov management to not move the aircraft when there was an impending threat from Russia:

“There was no decision to transfer the plane anywhere. You could do Rzeszów, you could do Leipzig. Why Leipzig? Because on January 26th, there was an appeal to management from the [NATO Support and Procurement Agency] via [Antonov Logistics (Germany)] for the relocation of all our aircraft. Flight personnel, personnel, spare parts, etc [could be transported] to Leipzig in light of a possible war. There was no answer to this inquiry…And as I said, there was no strong-willed decision to transfer [the aircraft] between February 15th and 23rd.”

Following investigations into the matter, Antonov management was found guilty of negligence in protecting the aircraft and the former CEO of Antonov could face up to 15 years in prison.