Air Charter Services (ACS) chartered Antonov Airlines' AN-225 freighter to transport a 182-tonne transformer from Brazil to Chile, which it claims is the heaviest single unit of cargo to be transported by air in the Americas.

The huge transformer was flown from Sao Paulo to Santiago de Chile, from where it was transferred to its final destination to replace a damaged transformer at an existing plant, reports Heavy Lift.

Richard Thompson, president of ACS Americas, commented: "The airline has said that it is the second heaviest single piece of cargo that has ever been transported by air and the largest to fly in the Americas.

"A lot of careful planning went into this operation. […] It took almost four months of discussions between us, the client, the airline and the airports to plan the charter and exactly how we would load and offload the cargo. The power unit is more than four metres high, and that doesn't include the transportation cradle that it is travelling in," Thompson added.

Source: Heavy Lift
Image: Heavy Lift