A 61-year-old Serbian man was almost pulled through a shattered window shortly after takeoff on a Ryanair flight from Thessaloniki, Greece, to Memmingen, Germany, recently (July 10).
The Boeing 737-800 was climbing at around 20,000 feet when a passenger cabin window beside him gave way. Fellow passengers grabbed him and held on as his head and shoulders got pulled outside the plane.
The catalyst for the crisis
Passengers first heard a loud bang that sounded like a tire bursting. It turned out that a piece of the plane’s engine had broken off and struck the window, shattering it, as per local Greek media and airport sources.
“We immediately realised there had been a decompression. There were screams … for a moment I thought someone had accidentally opened the emergency door,” one passenger told Radio Thessaloniki (a local Greek radio station). “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,” she added.
Thanks to that seat belt and the efforts of those around him, including his wife, the man avoided being fully sucked out. Michalis Giannakos, president of the Panhellenic Federation of Public Hospital Employees (POEDIN), whose union represents staff at the public hospital in Thessaloniki where the passenger was treated for friction burns, told reporters that the man’s wife held him down for five minutes.
The plane then made an emergency return and landed back in Thessaloniki, where passengers were moved onto a replacement flight.
Ryanair confirmed the incident in a statement, saying: “A Ryanair flight from Thessaloniki to Memmingen on Friday morning returned to Thessaloniki shortly after take-off when a passenger window dislodged inflight. The aircraft landed normally, and passengers returned to the terminal. One passenger requested and received medical assistance on the ground in Thessaloniki. In order to minimise any delay, a replacement aircraft was arranged to bring passengers to Memmingen which departed Thessaloniki at 9:53 local this morning”.