A man was nearly sucked head-first out of a window on a Ryanair plane mid-air, with his wife clinging onto his legs for about five minutes to stop him from being pulled out, a hospital official said.
Tracking data shows the aircraft, an 18-year-old plane operated by Ryanair's subsidiary Malta Air, was in the air for roughly 10 minutes on a Friday morning flight from Thessaloniki, Greece, to Memmingen, Germany, when it abruptly descended 9,000ft. Passengers told local media they heard "some kind of explosion".
“Wife held a man's legs for five minutes to stop him being sucked out of a Ryanair plane window mid-air.”
Christina, a passenger, told Radio Thessaloniki: "We immediately realised there had been a decompression. There were screams... for a moment I thought someone had accidentally opened the emergency door. The masks dropped and there was a strong smell. The head and shoulders of one passenger were outside the window. Fortunately, he hadn't taken off his seat belt."
Another passenger, Sofia, said: "When the oxygen masks dropped, we had no idea what was going to happen. We didn't know whether we would make it back. We were sitting at the back of the aircraft, and we realised there had been some kind of explosion. 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."
Michalis Giannakos, president of the Panhellenic Federation of Public Hospital Employees, said a 61-year-old Serbian man was being treated for friction burns. "His wife held onto his legs for around five minutes to stop him from being sucked out," Giannakos said. He added that the man "is in shock, remains conscious".
Passengers told local media the man was left hanging head first out of the window as far as his shoulders before other passengers pulled him back inside. Some on board said the window was smashed by pieces of the jet's engine, but Ryanair has not commented on this.
In a statement, Ryanair said the flight returned "shortly after take-off when a passenger window dislodged in flight. The aircraft landed normally and passengers returned to the terminal. One passenger requested and received medical assistance on the ground in Thessaloniki." The airline added that "a replacement aircraft was arranged to bring passengers to Memmingen" several hours later.
The incident raises questions about how a window could dislodge at altitude, and what safeguards exist to prevent a repeat of such a terrifying ordeal.