The Largest Cargo Plane in the World Just Flew Out of Minnesota

It was only here for less than 24 hours, but one of the biggest planes in the world just paid a visit to the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

It seems like Minnesotans—and Americans in general—have an uncanny knack for celebrating anything that’s the biggest, tallest, fastest, or most absurdly over-the-top these days. Our online feeds are filled with pictures of things that are out of the ordinary either in size, price, or stature, right?

So it's not exactly a surprise that a crowd gathered at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP) here in the North Star State early Friday to see a plane you don't see every day. In fact, they showed up at MSP's viewing area off Highway 77 to get a glimpse of one of the biggest planes in the world as it took off and flew out of the Bold North.

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BringMeTheNews says that the plane in question was the AN-124 Ruslan heavy transport plane made by the aircraft manufacturer Antonov. According to the Antonov website, the AN-124 is currently the world’s largest production transport airplane. It landed at MSP Thursday night and took off for California Friday morning. (No word on what it was carrying.)

Anotonov says there are currently dozens of AN-124s in service, though they don't get to our neck of the woods all that often. The AN-124 is the smaller cousin of the world's largest cargo plane, the Antonov-225 (AN-225), which was destroyed in 2022 after Russia attacked Ukraine. (The AN-225 itself was also once here in Minnesota over ten years ago, on July 2nd, 2014.)

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In case you're curious, the Antonov website says the first AN-124 took flight back in 1982. They can cruise between 800 and 850 miles an hour and can carry a payload that weighs between 26,000 to 33,00 pounds. If you'd like to purchase your own, it'll likely cost you between $50 to $90 million.

You can watch the Antonov AN-124 take off from MSP in the video below, as well as check out its larger cousin, the AN-225, when it took off from MSP back in 2014.