The engine was developed in the second half of the 1970s by the then Soviet
Ivchenko-Progress design bureau. The first start of a full-scale engine occurred on September 19, 1980, the An-124 maiden flight on December 24, 1982 and the engine passed official bench tests on December 19, 1985. An upgraded 3M version was developed to reduce emissions and increase the life of the hot section to 14,000 h, and is introduced on
An-124s of
Antonov Airlines. Currently 188 D-18T engines are in operation with a total flight time of over 1 million hours. == Incidents ==