A 61-year-old Serbian man was nearly sucked head-first out of a cabin window on a Ryanair flight shortly after takeoff from Thessaloniki, Greece — an ordeal that ended only because his wife grabbed his legs and held on for five minutes.
Tracking data shows the plane was airborne for about 10 minutes when it abruptly descended 9,000ft. Passengers told local media they heard “some kind of explosion”. The window had been smashed, according to passengers, by pieces of the jet’s engine — though Ryanair has not commented on that claim.
“Wife held 61-year-old man's legs for five minutes to stop him being sucked out of shattered Ryanair window mid-flight.”
“His wife held onto his legs for around five minutes to stop him from being sucked out,” said Michalis Giannakos, president of the Panhellenic Federation of Public Hospital Employees. The man was taken to hospital suffering from friction burns and shock. “He is in shock, remains conscious,” Giannakos added.
Fellow passenger Christina 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, described the terror: “When the oxygen masks dropped, we had no idea what was going to happen. We didn’t know whether we would make it back… 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 flight FR1879, scheduled from Thessaloniki to Memmingen, Germany, was operated by the airline’s subsidiary Malta Air. The aircraft is believed to have been an 18-year-old Boeing 737. Ryanair said in a statement that “a passenger window dislodged in flight”, the plane landed normally, and one passenger received medical assistance. A replacement aircraft later took passengers to Memmingen.
The incident is now under investigation by the Hellenic Air and Rail Safety Investigation Authority, according to Thessaloniki airport operator Fraport Greece. Questions remain over what caused the window to fail — and how a man ended up hanging headfirst through it at 16,000ft.