Jumbo jet rumbles in to RDU, leaving some dumbfounded

They huddled all morning in puddles alongside a parking-lot fence, wiping rain from their glasses and cameras. They were thrilled to be there, to see the biggest airplane in the world.

"When I first saw it through the clouds, it looked like a big, big bird," said Thelma Sherrill, 72, of Durham, after the Soviet-built Antonov AN-225 landed about 11:20 a.m. Friday at Raleigh-Durham International Airport. "And as it got closer, ooh ..."

She was among about 60 people watching from RDU's Observation Park as the giant jet descended from the clouds with six engines on broad, stoop-shouldered wings, its 32 tires settling on the runway.

Bigger crowds had been there a few hours earlier, clogging the I-40 off-ramps during the morning rush, on the original news that the jet was expected at 9 a.m.

The AN-225, built in 1989 in the former Soviet Union as a launch vehicle for the space shuttle Buran, is now a Ukraine-based charter cargo jet for customers who need something really big, really fast. Generators and oil rigs are among its frequent freight.

The big jet was dispatched to RDU to pick up a 120-ton electric power plant, built by General Electric and Bladen County-based Vulcan Amps, for delivery to Tanzania in eastern Africa.

"It'll make electricity for basically a small city," said David Wild of LaGrange, Ga., whose transport company was hired to oversee the delivery.

The AN-225's nose hinged open to reveal a cavernous cargo hold. It prepared to receive Wild's two tractor-trailer trucks carrying the 132-foot-long generator.

Most of the jet's 21 crew members disembarked with their suitcases and left for a 12-hour rest at a nearby motel. They were due to take off at midnight, with Wild among them.

In the air, crew members share small sleeping compartments and a pocket-sized galley on a narrow, gunmetal-gray corridor along the top of the fuselage. The cockpit seats two pilots, two engineers, a navigator and a radio operator.

Vadim Deniskov, 58, flight manager for the jet's owner, Antonov Airlines, said he didn't know how soon he would see his wife and 11-year-old daughter again in Kiev, Ukraine's capital.

The AN-225 frequently leaves home for two or three months at a time, picking up cargo here and dropping it there, then leaving for another job on another continent, he said.

Every landing costs money, as does every mile flown without cash-paying cargo in the hold (up to 200 tons) or strapped on top (up to 220 tons). The crew might spend a two-week layover at an airport motel somewhere, rather than return to the Ukraine between missions.

Fuel stops in Canada, Ireland and Egypt were planned between RDU and the cargo's destination in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. There was talk, Deniskov said, of a possible order to fly from Tanzania to Italy, to pick up something for delivery in the Persian Gulf emirate of Qatar.

Sometimes the boss has a hard time recruiting crew members for a trip that might last days or months, he said.

"Not all of us like to fly this long, and we try to escape from this job," said Deniskov, a trim man with wavy white hair, wide mustache and bright brown eyes.

"And he says, 'You may just take a toothbrush, because it is a short trip.' And then someone is gone for one month and says to him, 'Oh, you are a liar!' "

Diane Nolterieke of Raleigh was sorry she wouldn't see the "phenomenal" AN-225 take off this morning from her spot on the fence. "I flew on a C-5 Galaxy one time, as a military spouse going to Okinawa," she said. "When they came out and said this was bigger than a C-5, I wanted to see that."

(News researcher Lamara Williams-Hackett contributed to this report.)