Truly gigantic in size - length: 84.04 metres, wingspan: 88.4 metres, height: 18.10 metres, maximum take-off weight: 600 tonnes, loading capacity: 250 tonnes – the ANTONOV 225,  the world’s biggest cargo plane,  the ANTONOV 225 can’t land at  just any airport.

Requiring a runway measuring between 3,000 metres and 3,500 metres in length, depending on the payload,  the AN 225 has landed at Paris-Vatry Airport late afternoon on Friday, March 16 and will depart on Saturday, March 17, also late afternoon.

It is worth noting that this will mark the first time that a French airport has been chosen to carry out the loading of what is the Antonov Design Bureau’s sole model of this aircraft type. However, the AN 225 is no stranger to Vatry having already landed at the all-cargo hub on 25 March, 2003 for a technical stop en route to the United States.              

Built at the end of the 1980s to transport the Soviet space shuttle, Buran, the aircraft has since  been converted into a super heavylift carrier, called into service when the volumes to be transported exceed the capacity  of the “smaller” AN 124. It therefore fits the bill for the 177-tonne industrial load (made up of four individual shipments each weighing a little more than 44 tonnes !) entrusted to Airnautic France and Saga (SDV Group)  which will leave Paris-Vatry for Ras Al Khaimah, in the United Arab Emirates, via Cairo.