The project was buried. The prototype, according to the tale, was disassembled and its parts absorbed into the construction of the second (never-completed) An-225. No aerodynamicist believes the An-990 could have flown economically—or safely. The torsional stress on the wing joints would have been catastrophic. The fuel consumption would have bankrupted a small nation. The engine-out scenario (losing one of 14) would require a flight computer more advanced than anything in the 1990s.
Today, with the real An-225 destroyed in the 2022 conflict, the ghost of the An-990 serves as a poignant, almost tragic symbol. It reminds us that sometimes the most incredible aircraft are not the ones that fly, but the ones that exist just on the other side of reason, waiting in the blueprint—a beautiful, impossible answer to a question no one should have asked. antonov an-990
The taxi test was a disaster. The weight of the central fuselage caused the asphalt of the taxiway to liquefy. The first and only "hop"—a 20-foot rise off the runway at 180 knots—reportedly shattered every window in the control tower and stripped the roof off a nearby maintenance shed due to the exhaust wake of the 14 engines. The aircraft landed immediately, its rear triple-fuselage joint cracked. The project was buried
Officially, the An-990 never existed. No technical manual, no wind tunnel model, no grainy black-and-white photograph has ever been authenticated. Yet, among post-Soviet aerospace engineers, it is a cautionary fable of "what if the constraints of physics were merely suggestions?" According to the lore, the An-990 was conceived in the late 1980s, a time of Soviet economic chaos but unchecked engineering ambition. The brief was simple: transport the heaviest components of the Soviet energy and space sectors—whole nuclear reactor vessels, sections of oil rigs, and disassembled launch vehicles—without disassembly, overland, to the frozen ports of the Arctic. The torsional stress on the wing joints would