Russian Defence Ministry gets Doomsday airliner

Third-generation airborne command post, which was created on the basis of advanced Ilyushin Il-96-400 airliner, was presented to representatives of the Russian Ministry of Defence.

The airborne command posts, which are also called Doomsday aircraft, are intended for organization of military administration in case of a conflict with saturation nuclear weapons use, when a significant part of ground communications infrastructure is put out of order.

For the time being Russia uses four aircraft of the Ilyushin Il-80 class, in the US it's E-4B, modified from the Boeing 747.

According to designers, the new aircraft has no equivalents in the world, as there were used all the newest technologies under its design. Exact specifications are kept secret.

The wide-body transport airliner was equipped with special communications node on the Defence Ministry demand. In peacetime the airliner is needed for business trips of the Defence Ministry top officials.

Pravda.Ru