A routine Ryanair hop from Thessaloniki in Greece to Memmingen in Germany turned into a fight for survival on Friday, after a cabin window came loose mid-air and pulled a 61-year-old passenger halfway out of the aircraft, headfirst, while his wife gripped his legs for two agonising minutes.
Half His Body Was Outside the Plane
Svetlana Grković was travelling with her husband, Ljubisa Karović, when the window gave way shortly after takeoff. She said half of her husband's body was sticking out of the plane, and that he remained outside the aircraft up to his chest for a full two minutes. The moment it happened, Grković reacted on instinct. "I immediately reacted and grabbed his legs. I thought: 'If we die, we die together,'" she said. When a cabin window fails at altitude, the pressure inside the plane rushes to match the thinner air outside, and that sudden force is what began dragging Karović toward the opening. The passenger seated beside him grabbed his hand, and together with another traveller, the three of them wrestled him back inside as oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling and panic spread through the cabin. Someone tried wedging a suitcase against the broken window, but Grković said it was sucked straight out into the sky. Karović lost consciousness three times during the ordeal, she said.
A Seatbelt That May Have Saved Him
Other passengers told local media that Karović had kept his seatbelt fastened the entire time, and that this was what allowed the people around him to keep hold of him even as his head and shoulders were forced outside the fuselage. Grković said it appeared as though part of the plane's engine had broken off, smashing the window next to her husband's seat and triggering the sudden loss of cabin pressure. Several other passengers separately reported hearing a sound like an explosion in the moments just before the decompression hit.
What the Family Believes Caused It
A technical adviser appointed by the family believes the emergency began with a failure in the aircraft's right engine, which sent debris into the cabin window, shattering it and setting off the rapid loss of pressure. That theory has not been confirmed by investigators, and the precise cause remains under formal examination.
'It's Important to Me That He's Alive'
Grković said her husband is now "seriously injured and in shock". "It's important to me that he's alive... his hand is particularly badly injured, and he's got burns. He's not able to communicate, he doesn't remember the whole event," she said. She added that Karović now shakes whenever he hears anything about aeroplanes. She described her own state as fragile too, saying: "I am also in a very bad psychological state... I feared for our lives. I was afraid the plane was going to crash."
The Flight That Dropped 9,000 Feet in Minutes
Flight tracking data shows the aircraft had been airborne for only around 10 minutes before it abruptly dropped 9,000ft, roughly 2,700 metres. Two other passengers described the chaos that broke out in those moments. Christina, a fellow passenger, said: "We immediately realised there had been a decompression. There were screams... for a moment I thought someone had accidentally opened the emergency door." Another passenger, Sofia, said: "We thought the plane was going down. The decompression was extreme. It felt like we couldn't breathe. The man who was injured was bleeding and then lost consciousness several times, most likely because of the lack of oxygen and the shock."
Ryanair and the Airport Respond
In a statement, Ryanair said its Friday morning flight from Thessaloniki to Memmingen returned "shortly after take-off when a passenger window dislodged in flight". The airline added: "The aircraft landed normally and passengers returned to the terminal. One passenger requested and received medical assistance on the ground in Thessaloniki." Thessaloniki airport's operator, Fraport Greece, said the incident is currently under investigation by the Hellenic Air and Rail Safety Investigation Authority.
An Ageing Boeing and a Multi-Country Investigation
The aircraft involved is believed to be around 18 years old and was operated by Malta Air, a Ryanair subsidiary. Because it is a US-built Boeing 737-800 and the incident occurred in North Macedonian airspace, investigators from multiple international aviation authorities are now assisting with the inquiry, including Boeing itself, the US Federal Aviation Administration, and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency. According to local media, the 61-year-old remains in hospital while the investigation into what caused the failure continues.
