An-225 damaged beyond economical repair ?

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Bilboone
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An-225 damaged beyond economical repair ?

Post by Bilboone »

found this somewhere in a forum :
Those of you who know of and care about Antonov's An-225 Mriya will be sad to hear this news.
I have it on good authority that the aircraft has been seriously damaged on the ground at Ras Al Khaimah airport (OMRK/RKT) in the United Arab Emirates sometime last week. I can find no news on the web of the incident after much Googling.
I have seen pictures of the damage caused by some sort of hydraulic rupture around the lower nose area which resulted in the dual nosegears being literally torn from their mountings. This caused massive structural deformation to the floor in that area. The nose cargo door was being opened which compounded the problem because the fuselage had lost the structural rigidity to better withstand the force. Flying shrapnel caused further damage to the airframe including the wings
The ramp at RAK (not the largest) is pretty well blocked bringing what little other traffic there is to a halt. I haven't been able to check NOTAMs for the airport, but I'm sure operations there are badly affected.
Apparently the dilemma is whether or not to repair this nearly unique aircraft. Having been bult in such small numbers (only two exist and I'm not certain if the second one is flying yet) spares are not exactly easily available.
There's an urgency, from the airport authorities, to remove it from the ramp. There's the distance of RKT from the Ukraine and the Antonov factory. The airframe is now structurally compromised, so cannot be flown. There's no hangarage at the airport and we have the imminent heat of the Arabian summer with temperatures up to 50C/120F, dust storms etc. Not the ideal conditions to conduct lengthy repairs, even if they're possible, out in the open.
Sombody have/found some more news about it ?
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tsv
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Post by tsv »

It's been reported on Russian Aviation forum that "he's ok and back in Gomostel"!

Thank heavens for that - I'm a big fan of the world's largest a/c.

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Philippe1983
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Post by Philippe1983 »

tsv wrote:he's ok and back in Gomostel !
Do you mean "Gostomel", perhaps ? [Kiev - Gostomel (GML/UKKM)]

Nicknamed "the Antonov airport" :D because it's where the main facility of the well-known aircraft builder is located.

If you wanna know more about it :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gostomel_Airport
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tsv
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Post by tsv »

Yeah that would be the one. :lol:

website-info
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Post by website-info »

guys,

here is a link with a few piccies,

http://www.flightsim.no/ubbthreads/ubbt ... Post328564

the aircraft was temporaily repaired at RKT and ferried back to GML for repair

Rgds
T

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galaxy
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Re: An-225 damaged beyond economical repair ?

Post by galaxy »

Bilboone wrote:found this somewhere in a forum :
Those of you who know of and care about Antonov's An-225 Mriya will be sad to hear this news.
I have it on good authority that the aircraft has been seriously damaged on the ground at Ras Al Khaimah airport (OMRK/RKT) in the United Arab Emirates sometime last week. I can find no news on the web of the incident after much Googling.
I have seen pictures of the damage caused by some sort of hydraulic rupture around the lower nose area which resulted in the dual nosegears being literally torn from their mountings. This caused massive structural deformation to the floor in that area. The nose cargo door was being opened which compounded the problem because the fuselage had lost the structural rigidity to better withstand the force. Flying shrapnel caused further damage to the airframe including the wings
The ramp at RAK (not the largest) is pretty well blocked bringing what little other traffic there is to a halt. I haven't been able to check NOTAMs for the airport, but I'm sure operations there are badly affected.
Apparently the dilemma is whether or not to repair this nearly unique aircraft. Having been bult in such small numbers (only two exist and I'm not certain if the second one is flying yet) spares are not exactly easily available.
There's an urgency, from the airport authorities, to remove it from the ramp. There's the distance of RKT from the Ukraine and the Antonov factory. The airframe is now structurally compromised, so cannot be flown. There's no hangarage at the airport and we have the imminent heat of the Arabian summer with temperatures up to 50C/120F, dust storms etc. Not the ideal conditions to conduct lengthy repairs, even if they're possible, out in the open.
Sombody have/found some more news about it ?
This is a bad ( april fool's ) joke.The whole story is invented and there is nothing wrong with the AN-225.
If you look at the picture in the forum (link below),you will see the support beside the nose gear .This is normal because that plane is made to kneel down with the nose gear to get the loading platform closer to the ground.
Look at the picture shown in the forum :
http://www.aspelund.org/images/an225/AN225-8.JPG
I don't see one bit of damage here .

Look also at the picture from Airliners.net with the same support beside the nose gear :
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1165689/L/

Here the link of the forum:
http://www.diecastaircraftforum.com/dac ... -news.html

Gott
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Post by Gott »

bad joke

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Bilboone
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Post by Bilboone »

Galaxy wrote:This is a bad ( april fool's ) joke.The whole story is invented and there is nothing wrong with the AN-225.
If you look at the picture in the forum (link below),you will see the support beside the nose gear .This is normal because that plane is made to kneel down with the nose gear to get the loading platform closer to the ground.
Look at the picture shown in the forum :
http://www.aspelund.org/images/an225/AN225-8.JPG
I don't see one bit of damage here .
So mister Galaxy, Why are you sure there is no damage, what is your source , that picture ?
The pictures shows there is a puddle of hydraulic fluid under the nose section. So something must be wrong.

Some sources speak about a total failure of the nose gears hydraulics and it took 2 weeks to repair it.

It's quit normal there is only little of info around the web about incidents like that.
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foxtrot_lima_yankee
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Post by foxtrot_lima_yankee »

This is a real incident, not a joke.
On the pics you can see the airport s firebrigade deployed around the aircraft.
They say that AN-124 nose gear are quite similar to the 225's so it will probably take the skies again.
Would love to see one in BRU though :-)

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galaxy
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Post by galaxy »

Bilboone wrote:So mister Galaxy, Why are you sure there is no damage, what is your source , that picture ?
The pictures shows there is a puddle of hydraulic fluid under the nose section. So something must be wrong.

Some sources speak about a total failure of the nose gears hydraulics and it took 2 weeks to repair it.

It's quit normal there is only little of info around the web about incidents like that.
Bilboone,

I have the same information you have=nothing but some discussion in the other forum.
Assuming the picture is not an old one and assuming it is a puddle of hydraulic fluid under the nose,(what occurs at my car sometimes too),I see no damage on the plane as described in the first post with exaggerating and also suggest the plane is damaged beyond economical repair .

foxtrot_lima_yankee wrote:On the pics you can see the airport s firebrigade deployed around the aircraft.
Could it be that they are just the normal ramp crew preparing to do their job?

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earthman
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Post by earthman »

galaxy wrote:
foxtrot_lima_yankee wrote:On the pics you can see the airport s firebrigade deployed around the aircraft.
Could it be that they are just the normal ramp crew preparing to do their job?
There is a yellow fire truck behind the plane.

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Bilboone
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Post by Bilboone »

Some pictures of the incident :
You see clearly some people in there

Image


picture of the broken nose strut :
Image
Image

sama91
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Post by sama91 »

wow, thats pretty bad damage. Are they going to try to repiar it ? I hope they find a good way out, it will be sad to se this as the end of An-225!

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galaxy
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Post by galaxy »

Whatever happened, she is still flying as a butterfly.
Look at the pictures taken a few days ago at Memphis (MEM / KMEM) and at Glasgow - Prestwick (PIK / EGPK)

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1232131/L/
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1230155/L/
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1229758/L/

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ElcoB
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Post by ElcoB »

galaxy wrote:Whatever happened, she is still flying as a butterfly.
Look at the pictures taken a few days ago at Memphis (MEM / KMEM) and at Glasgow - Prestwick (PIK / EGPK)
Wowza....thanks for this...

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earthman
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Post by earthman »

Yep, looks repaired to me.

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Bilboone
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Post by Bilboone »

Yes , It's nice to see this beauty is flying again, You see, this Russian giant is indestructible, I hear they made a quite nice repair when they flew her back to Gostomel. Hopefully was Mr Galaxy convinced with the other pictures that there was some serious damaged, I never saw a nose gear strut broken like that. I can tell from my experience if you see a puddle of hydraulic fluid like that , there is major problem and the A/C will be AOG.
Image

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galaxy
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Post by galaxy »

Bilboone wrote: Hopefully was Mr Galaxy convinced with the other pictures that there was some serious damaged.
I'm not going to discuss about the pictures.Let's say I'm always suspicious about statements without a link to refer
PS:
People from Galaxy don't have a tittle. :wink:

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an-148
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Post by an-148 »

Bilboone wrote:You see, this Russian giant is indestructible, .

Ukrainian :wave:

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