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Wales Online
Wales Online
National
Phoebe Tonks & Elaine Blackburne

Giant 'unidentified' Antonov plane flying over UK sparks questions - but this is what it was doing

Questions were asked when a mystery plane was spotted flying over the UK. The plane, an A124 Antonov, was initially reported as being "unidentified".

It travelled over Yorkshire on Sunday morning between 8am and 9am, going from the Humber Estuary to the Pennines. However according to Yorkshire Live it is now known to have been flying as part of a humanitarian mission.

Many questioned whether the plane was a Russian craft. However it has been found to be Ukrainian.

It is understood the aircraft was flying to the USA. It was on an aid mission to help the Ukrainians in their resistance to the Russian incursion.

According to flight tracker, Flightradar24, the plane took off from Leipzig Halle Airport, in east Germany at about 6am. The plane then travelled across Germany, the Netherlands, the North Sea and over Yorkshire.

It then went on to Lancashire and out over the Atlantic. It travelled across Canadian airspace in the early afternoon before landing at New York's JFK airport at about 3.45pm.

The A124 aeroplanes were first built in what is now Ukraine in the 1980s when it was then part of the Soviet Union. Since then, the planes have been used by Russian airline Volga-Dnepr and by Ukrainian airline Antonov Airlines.

Antonov Airlines' planes had previously been based at the Hostomel airport in Ukraine. Following the destruction of the airport, all planes flying as part of the Antonov fleet were relocated to Leipzig Halle Airport in Germany.

According to a post shared by the airline two weeks ago, the company continues to fly commercially throughout the world but specifically prefers to take on humanitarian missions for the Ukrainian people. It is one of these missions that is believed to have taken place on Sunday, with the aircraft travelling to the United States to collect vital aid equipment and supplies for Ukraine, which remains under siege by Russian forces.

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