A seven-year-old Ukrainian Zakhar Liskovy can make a skillful fact-checker one day.
Liskovy, who lives in the U.S. with his family, has spotted a mistake in a British encyclopedia for kids, “1000+ Science Facts,” that he brought on his family road trip.
The book’s entry about planes stated that “the biggest aicraft ever built is the Russian AN-225.”
The boy immediately saw the mistake: AN-225, also known as Mriya, was built by the Ukrainian plant Antonov, based in Kyiv.
Outraged about the book apparently confusing Ukraine with Russia, Liskovy filmed an appeal to the publisher, the British publishing house Miles Kelly, and posted it on Youtube.
“I found a mistake and created a video address to the publisher and editors of the book asking them to correct it, indicating that the Antonov AN-225 Mriya is a Ukrainian-made plane,” Liskovy said in the video.
Seven-year-old Ukrainian Zakhar Liskovy appeals to British Miles Kelly Publishing asking to fix a mistake in their encyclopedia.
Even though Liskovy lives with his parents in the U.S., he said he knew that Mriya (“Dream” in Ukrainian) was a Ukrainian plane.
The Antonov An-225 Mriya is a strategic airlift cargo aircraft that was first designed by the Antonov Design Bureau in the 1980s when Ukraine was a part of the Soviet Union. It is powered by six turbofan engines and is the heaviest aircraft ever built, with a maximum takeoff weight of 640 tonnes. The Antonov An-225 was initially developed for the task of transporting the Buran, a 105-ton reusable space shuttle, on its back.
It was mostly used for flying super heavy cargos like gas turbines as well as military supplies for NATO forces in the Middle East. The plane rarely takes to the skies because there is little demand for its highly specialised and relatively costly service. According to BBC, anyone who wants to charter the sole An-225 has to pay $30,000 an hour.
However, in August members of the Aviation Industry Corporation of China and the Antonov Corporation signed an agreement to restart production of the AN-225.
In his video, Liskovy said that getting this fact right is important for him because “it’s one of the greatest Ukrainians inventions.”
“If you take a look at this plane, it has yellow and blue stripes on it, that’s the official flag colors of Ukraine,” the boy says.
To back his words, he searched for sources over the internet and included it into his video address that was published on his channel zakUak on Jan. 30. Liskovy only has some 187 followers but his video about a mistake was viewed more than 2,300 times.
Miles Kelly Publishing, an independent children’s publishing company founded in the UK by Jim Miles and Gerard Kelly in 1996, reacted promptly to Liskovy’s address, sending the boy an email apologizing for the mistake.
Amanda Askew of the Miles Kelly Publishing told the Kyiv Post that “they work very hard to create high-quality fact books,” and they are checked thoroughly by expert authors and consultants.
“We thank our eagle-eyed seven-year-old reader for spotting a mistake in one of our encyclopedias,” Askew said in a written comment. “We promptly acted upon this and the book has already been corrected, ready for when it is next reprinted.”
