World record for IAF: IL-76 MD heavy-lift aircraft makes historic touchdown at Ladakh's Nyoma airbase

The Indian Air Force (IAF) has sucessfully clinched a world record after it landed an aircraft at the Mudh-Nyoma airbase in eastern Ladakh, located at an altitude of 13,629 feet.

This was the Ilyushin IL-76MD heavy-lift military transport aircraft, which has now become the first to touch down at such an altitude anywhere in the world, the IAF announced.

"13,629 FEET. A NEW HEIGHT IN AVIATION HISTORY. ​An Indian Air Force IL-76MD has scripted history with a successful landing at Nyoma, marking the highest-altitude landing ever achieved by the aircraft anywhere in the world," the IAF wrote in an X post.

Notably, while the Nyoma is the highest fighter-capable airbase in the world, the highest advanced landing ground is actually the Daulat Beg Oldie, which lies roughly 250km north of Nyoma, but is not currently capable of handling operations by heavy-lift aircraft.

In any case, what makes the world-record landing more significant are the demanding conditions that the IL-76 would have been subjected to at such a high altitude. This is because thin air at these heights affects the amount of lift these aircraft can generate, which makes both take-offs and landings extremely difficult.

(More details are awaited.)