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The world’s largest air@
craft, the Antonov An-225 Mriya, has landed in Malaysia for its second time ever on Saturday, and the country remains the only Asean country where it has touched down. The behemoth of a cargo plane touched down at the KL International Airport (KLIA) at 8.30am from Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad, India, and is here for refuelling purposes. KLIA is the plane’s last refuelling stop after stopping at Prague, Turkmenistan and Hyderabad after taking off from Kiev in the Ukraine.The plane has flown across three continents, namely Europe, Asia and Oceania, and is on schedule on its “special mission” to haul a generator weighing 130 tonnes to Perth, Australia on Sunday. Chief pilot Antonov Dmytrov (pic) told Bernama that the plane, measuring 84m long and 18m high, is the world’s longest and heaviest plane, which he described as equivalent to flying a five-storey building.It has 32 tyres in its landing gear and a wingspan of 88m.Antonov, who has 14 years’ experience flying the huge plane, said it is powered by six engines and is able carry a maximum takeoff weight of 640 tonnes.”The airplane is way bigger than an Airbus A380 … no other plane like this in the world.”The airplane was developed in the 1980s for the (former) Soviet Union to carry a space shuttle on its back,” he said.
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The world’s largest air@