Antonov 225 update

[glfsc]

Images now showing it has been completely destroyed. Ukraine president saying that Russia will pay for it to be rebuilt. This goes to say the second one that was never finished, may just come into the frame and finally get airborne after being sat for so many years in that hangar collecting dust.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10578385/amp/Pictured-Worlds-biggest-plane-destroyed-Russian-assault-Ukrainian-airfield.html

[ian531]

Just had an alert on Flightradar24 that the An-225 is on the move- pretty sure somebody is faking this

An-225 by ian531531, on Flickr

Check out the flight number

Ian

[ian531]

This is now updated and the flight has disappeared

[robaero]

Probably hacker's.

[ian531]

Probably, look at the flight code

[radiostationx]

[Airbus A346]

An interesting statement has been made by Dmytros Antonov who is one of the An225 flight crew.
He claims that Antonovs management team has a lot to answer for. They could see what was coming, and were warned by NATO months earlier to move it to Leipzig or Rzeszow.
One report suggested it had undercarriage issues - surely it could have made the short hop gear down ? Another report claims it had an engine removed for servicing, presumably no spare engine available.
Either way they ignored the warnings and we are, where we are now ? Dmytros has been subsequently dismissed for speaking out - not that he had a job to return too 🤔

Dmytros has gained access to Gostomel and posted photos on Aeronews. The main hanger contains an An124 UR-82009 minus all of its engines, this was undergoing a major service and was damaged to a lesser extent.

[Deleted]

Apr 1, 2022 23:38:35 GMT 1 Airbus A346 said:

An interesting statement has been made by Dmytros Antonov who is one of the An225 flight crew.
He claims that Antonovs management team has a lot to answer for. They could see what was coming, and were warned by NATO months earlier to move it to Leipzig or Rzeszow.
One report suggested it had undercarriage issues - surely it could have made the short hop gear down ? Another report claims it had an engine removed for servicing, presumably no spare engine available.
Either way they ignored the warnings and where are we now ? Dmytros has been subsequently dismissed for speaking out - not that he had a job to return too 🤔

Dmytros has gained access to Gostomel and posted photos on Aeronews. The main hanger contains an An124 UR-82008 minus all of its engines, this was undergoing a major service and was damaged to a lesser extent.

That's a very interesting statement. I have friends in Ukraine, and when the initial intelligence began to point towards a possible invasion, I asked them what they thought. They believed it wouldn't happen, and I think this was the general view throughout Ukraine, so I suspect that despite NATO's warnings they thought everything would be OK. No doubt NATO were thinking how useful the Myria could be (as would undoubtedly been the case), once the invasion began. The double whammy was that the Russians chose Gostomel (I still can't get used to the Ukrainian spellings, Kyiv, Odesa etc., rather than the Russian ones), as a base for their helicopters and other equipment - I notice in one of the photos there are two damaged tanks.

I hope that one day they can restore both aircraft to flying condition, but it will take a long time. I don't think money will be a problem. Countries will be queueing up to help them, plus there's the scrap value from all those Russian armoured vehicles dotted around the country.

[ronturner]

In the report I read, there was am implication that the Antonov company management were determined that the aircraft would not be used against the Russians. I suppose our news depends upon the media we are reading or listening to.

Edited :- Lifted off the internet this afternoon:-

The director of the Ukrainian aircraft manufacturing company Antonov has been sacked after he allegedly failed to save the world’s largest plane from being destroyed by the Russians.
Serhiy Bychkov has been accused of having ties with Russia, with some accusations that this may have led to the plane’s destruction.
However, some claim the plane was not airworthy.
The Antonov An-225 Mriya, which was 84m long and weighed 175 tonnes with no fuel or cargo, was the longest and heaviest operational plane in the world.
News that the massive Antonov An-225 aeroplane had been destroyed after Russian soldiers attacked the Hostomel airfield, on the outskirts of Kyiv, made headlines around the world.
Now the Ukrainian conglomerate Ukroboronprom, which is made up of 123 state-owned companies, including Antonov, among numerous other assets, has suspended Mr Bychkov over his apparent failure to rescue the aircraft before it was obliterated in Mr Putin’s war.
Ukroboronprom released an official statement which said: “On March 29, Ukroboronprom removed Serhiy Bychkov from his office of General Director of the Antonov State Enterprise, which is part of the State Concern.
“The reason for the dismissal was an official investigation into verification of certain facts published in the media.
“Yuriy Husyev, General Director of Ukroboronprom, appealed to law enforcement bodies.
“Ukroboronprom is assisting the Security Service of Ukraine in elucidating the events of possible violations.”
The massive Antonov An-225, only one of which has ever been made, was set to be relocated to an airfield near Leipzig, Germany before the war began, and where other Antonov aircraft had already been parked, according to German media.
Dmytro Antonov, 58, a pilot who, coincidentally, has the same name as the airline’s founder, Oleg Antonov, said: “On 26th January, there was an appeal to top management, both from NAMSA, NATO’s logistics service provider, and from Antonov Salis GmbH.
“All aircraft, personnel and spare parts should have been brought to safety in Leipzig. There was no decision as of 23rd February.”
Denying claims that the aircraft was not able to fly, he added: “I flew with her on 5th February.. After that, her engines were serviced. On the evening of 23th February, she was ready to fly to Leipzig with 70 tonnes of fuel.”
But the rescue flight did not take place, for reasons that are still unclear, and now it appears that the Ukrainian government is blaming Bychkov for the plane’s destruction.
The pilot reportedly claims that the reason the rescue operation was prevented was that the top managers of the Ukrainian company had ties with Russia.
The pilot, who has reportedly been sacked as well, warned people against donating money to the USD-3-billion effort to build a new Antonov An-225, saying: “Of course you can deposit your money, but at your own risk…”

[cargoking]

Witht regards to the AN225 a lot of reports about it and speculation. The reason the AN225 didn't fly out was because as said above it was having not one but 2 engine changes, this was becoming a must as these where the last two engine that needed changing for lower engine cycle hours. They where also carrying out other smaller bits of MX on the airframe because of how much flying the aircraft has done for Covid PPE over the last few months they had finally found the time, And yes Antonov top dogs where told they could bring it here to Leipzig a few weeks ago we had 7 ADB AN124's in for parking. This has now gone to 4 due to aircraft being tasked with jobs/misssion, but they have a small base here in Leipzig so are likely to return. The above information has come form a very good friend of mine who is a flight engineer for Antonov.

[Airbus A346]

This is Dmytros Antonovs video showing the aftermath at Gostomel - eye opening and worth watching.
It starts a little slowly with damaged buildings etc
then moves on to the aircraft outside including the An22 ... then into the hangars, be patient and watch it to the end. It will leave you lost for words 😢

youtu.be/AuQGvi_R8zg

[ronturner]

A very distressing video. I can understand to some extent the destruction of aircraft in a fighting zone. I am far more distressed about the wholesale looting and destruction in the buildings and offices. This tells us a lot about the mind set and discipline and the soldiers and their commanders, which appears not to have changed much from when the Red Army.
entered Berlin.

I like the sequence where the plucky tough little Charlie the Cessna sacrificed itself by supporting the wing of the AN225. Like something from a children's story book.

[Deleted]

Agreed Ron. Because of my friends in Ukraine, I am following this with great interest. I don't want to get all political over this, but having spent more than 50 years travelling in the USSR and then Russia and the CIS, I can tell you that looting and stealing comes as second nature to many people in Russia. When I travelled there regularly in the 1970s, I saw a lot of trains pulling coal wagons, or sometimes in a siding. I noticed that the coal was covered in a white substance, which I initially believed was snow. Fast forward to my first summer there and the white covering was still there. I asked my KGB minder, (because in those days you did not move outside Moscow without one), What this was. He told me it was a chemical preparation to stop the coal from getting wet. After glasnost I was told a different story. Basically, it was a type of whitewash, and if the train was shunted into a siding overnight, the locals would steal the coal. By whitewashing it, they could tell if any had been stolen, and it if had, they would send a KGB rummage squad into the nearby village.

I have both Russian and Ukrainian friends. My Russian friends are appalled by what has happened and my Ukrainian friends are wondering why their otherwise peaceful country has been attacked by a megalomaniac worthy of a James Bond film.