The Ilyushin Il-18D is a four-engine medium-range transport aircraft for up to 5 crew and 110 passengers.
Flown for the first time on 4 July 1957, the Il-18 Moskva (Moscow) was originally powered by Kuznetsov NK-4
turboprops, but the Ivchenko AI-20 was adopted as standard at an early production stage. Deliveries of the
Il-18 (NATO reporting name 'Coot') started in 1959 and the 75-seat Il-18 entered service on a domestic
Aeroflot flight from Moscow to Adler on 20 April 1959. Further developments of the model resulted in a number
of improvements and growing capacity. The last civil production version, the Il-18D built from 1965-69, was
utilised with the 4,250 shp AE-20K engine could carry 110 or max 122 passengers. When production ended in
1969, over 600 Il-18 airliners of all versions were built in the GAZ-30 Znamya Truda (Banner of Labour)
plant at Khodinka in Moscow in the former USSR.
Aeroflot Il-18D CCCP-75499 was photographed on the early morning of 12 November 1991.
However this 1968-built aeroplane wears the Aeroflot colours, it was not a normal passenger
aircraft. The Ilyushin was operated in a VIP-configuration on behalf of the Byelorussia Government.
On 11 November 1991, the Il-18D came in at Groningen Airport Eelde, the Netherlands, with a Belorussian trading delegation.
Registration CCCP-75499 shown on the aircraft is in Cyrillic and means SSSR-75499. After the split up of the Soviet Union,
the Ilyushin was registered RA-75499 in Russia.