That Antonov brings memories...I have heard pieces of a story that the Russians flew an Antonov overseas, and upon landing, and there was an immediate inspection ordered upon landing which found the Antonov to not be airworthy. If the Russians wanted to fly the plane back, they would have to make the necessary repairs/upgrades which were, of course, more than significant in time, money, and resources, leaving the only choice to abandon the plane there for multiple years. I suspected BS, but it was still a cool story, and I never had time to go digging.
The original post is the same make/model, but it looks quite new, and there's no mention of that (just cool facts).
Anyone else hear of this? Confirm/deny?