Watch as world’s largest plane cuts a clear path through fog

Planes landing in thick fog always seems miraculous to us, but this video of the world’s largest cargo plane swiping a clear streak of blue sky through the haze is a thing of beauty.

The Antonov Airlines An-225 Mriya – a Soviet-designed cargo plane – was landing at Poland’s Rzeszow Airport on Sunday.

Hundreds of planespotters took to the fences outside the airport to film and photograph the majestic aircraft making its final approach.

The behemoth can be heard approaching but isn’t visible until it gets extremely close to the runway, breaking through the fog and clearing a “path” of blue sky as it descends.

While the Airbus A380 is the world’s largest passenger jet, the An-225 has a wingspan of nearly 290 feet wide (to the A380’s 260), as well as six engines and 32 wheels.

The heaviest aircraft ever built, it was designed in the 1980s to transport rockets for the Soviet space programme, and has operated as a cargo plane since 2001.

Due to its massive size, the plane’s take-offs and landings are extremely popular with aviation fans, with footage and photos shared widely on AV blogs.

Photos posted to social media show the neat ‘runway’ of blue sky through the fog after the titanic aircraft swooped through it.

The aircraft sustained some minor damage to its landing gear during the flight, according to a tweet from the Antonov company on 10 January.

It said that the landing gear deployment sensor attachment bolts were “cut” on the right landing gear strut.

An update on 11 January said the problem had been resolved and the An-225 was back in the air.

“Owing to the effective coordinated teamwork of the #ANTONOV Company’s departments and high skill of the specialists, airworthiness of the #AN225 aircraft has been fully recovered.

“AN-225 Mriya safety continues its commercial mission to #China,” read a follow-up tweet from the company.