{"id":421756,"date":"2026-05-11T05:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T05:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/421756\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T05:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T05:00:08","slug":"antonov-an-124-worlds-biggest-aircraft-lands-in-new-zealand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/421756\/","title":{"rendered":"Antonov AN-124, world\u2019s biggest aircraft, lands in New Zealand"},"content":{"rendered":"

Flight tracking sites showed the Antonov AN-124 Ruslan just northeast of New Zealand this afternoon.<\/p>\n

The aircraft has a wingspan of 73.3m and a height of 21m.<\/p>\n

The strategic airlift quadjet left from Hawaii earlier today.<\/p>\n

The only bigger aircraft was the Antonov An-225 Mriya, which was destroyed when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.<\/p>\n

Antonov Airlines is the giant aircraft\u2019s operator.<\/p>\n

\"AntonovAntonov An-124 cargo planes from the Russian Volga-Dnepr Group seen parked at Leipzig\/Halle Airport earlier this year. Photo \/ Jan Woitas, dpa Picture-Alliance via AFP<\/p>\n

\u201cThe AN-124 Ruslan is the last airplane developed under the guidance of general designer Oleg K. Antonov,\u201d the company website said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is the world\u2019s largest production transport airplane,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n

\u201cThirty world records have been set on the AN-124, including an absolute payload-to-altitude record when a 171.219-ton payload was lifted to the altitude of 10,750m.\u201d<\/p>\n

John Weekes<\/a> is a business journalist covering aviation. He previously covered consumer affairs, crime, politics and courts.<\/p>\n

Stay ahead with the latest market moves, corporate updates, and economic insights by subscribing to our Business newsletter<\/a> \u2013 your essential weekly round-up of all the business news you need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Flight tracking sites showed the Antonov AN-124 Ruslan just northeast of New Zealand this afternoon. The aircraft has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421757,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[11730,31844,216529,216528,28824,51,6326,37055,216530,13313,78,38692,117,111,43,139,69,15026,1961,100172,17450,80],"class_list":["post-421756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-afternoon","tag-aircraft","tag-an124","tag-antonov","tag-arrived","tag-auckland","tag-biggest","tag-cargo","tag-fourengined","tag-giant","tag-in","tag-lands","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-plane","tag-this","tag-ukrainian","tag-worlds","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}