"84 meters ... 88 meters ... 250 tons ... 300,000 lbs"
250 tons = 227 tonnes (227,000 kg)
300,000 lbs = 136 tonnes
Why the second figure wasn't just given as 150 tons I have no idea.
(My initial complaint was just with the units mismatch. But, as is often the case, this is just the tip of the iceberg. My rule of thumb remains in force: any time an article mixes up metric/imperial/US Customary units, you can basically ignore that part of it.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_C-5_Galaxy
(I think the typical reader will have little intuition for the cargo capacity of the C-17, so the more instructive comparison looks at the most capable operational US plane.)
Also note that (according to Wikipedia) the capacity is 250,000kg - so 275 tons, or 551,155 lbs.
The C-17's cargo capacity (again, from Wikipedia) is 77,500kg - so 85 tons, or 170,858lbs. That looks a lot more like a difference of 380,000lbs than 300,000lbs to me, which, with some journalistic licence, could surely become "almost 400,000lbs more". You may well be correct about the sensationalism aspect, and here they are leaving some of that on the table.
So I don't really know what's going on. Like I said, functionally innumerate... (Though of course, calculation error at this end is always a possibility! But nobody's paying me to do this, so I'm going to go with my gut here.)
http://www.avionale.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Lockheed_...
c5 Galaxy is massive.
Interestingly, Boeing 747-8F is even bigger, heavier, and carries more load.
Antonov 225?
Well, it can carry the same load as both of those planes combined, which really put things into perspective.