It is the explosion just before he was nearly sucked out of the aircraft that Ljubisa Karović remembers. The thunderous noise of the window shattering roused him from slumber in seat 11F on the early morning Ryanair flight from Greece to Germany. Eleven days later, the 61-year-old Serbian entrepreneur says the prelude “to the chaos, the catastrophe” keeps him awake at night.
“The explosion is what I remember,” he told the Guardian, his head supported by a neck brace, burns and bruises livid on his right arm, ascending to his armpit and chest. “It’s the noise before the chaos, the noise that is always there when I close my eyes to sleep.”
“Ljubisa Karović recounts the 'explosion' before he was sucked out of a Ryanair window, surviving at 15,000ft.”
Karović was partially sucked out of the cabin window on the Boeing 737 operated by Ryanair subsidiary Malta Air. His head and right shoulder were pulled out as the aircraft moved at more than 600km/h at 15,000ft. Passengers, including his wife Svetlana Grković Maksimović seated three rows behind, held on to his legs for several minutes. “We pulled him back together,” she told BBC Serbia. “His entire face was deformed and blood was pouring from his nose and mouth.”
Another passenger used a bag, then a suitcase to plug the hole, the Mirror reported. Karović was taken to hospital after an emergency landing. He has since been discharged but lives with pain. His Greek lawyer, Vasilis Tsiaras, said: “Ljubisa dipped in and out of death. He looked at death, that other world, and came back.”
Karović, who was heading to Germany to celebrate his brother’s birthday, credits his survival to his seatbelt and fate. “I believe in God and I thank him every day,” he said.
Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary said initial investigation suggests “foreign object damage to the engine on takeoff at Thessaloniki” may have caused the incident, but added “we can’t say that definitively”. He insisted the 18-year-old Boeing engine had been fully serviced and overhauled in the past two years. The US National Transportation Safety Board is investigating, with a draft report expected in about 28 days.
For Karović, the trauma endures. “I don’t want anyone to suffer what happened to me,” he said.
