Ryanair passenger sucked out of window only remembers ‘the explosion’

Ljubiša Karović, a Ryanair passenger who was partly sucked out of a plane window mid-flight, says all he remembers is the ‘explosion’.

Ljubiša, 61, was sound asleep when the cabin window next to his seat shattered, jolting him awake and sending his head out the plane.

He only survived because his wife, Svetlana Grković, clung onto his legs while his head dangled outside the Boeing 737 for five minutes.

The Serbian aluminium factory owner told The Guardian that all that he remembers from the incident was the noise of the window breaking.

‘It’s the noise before the chaos, the noise that is always there when I close my eyes to sleep,’ Ljubiša said.

While friction burns now cover his right arm to his chest, Ljubiša added that he was ‘lucky’ to be alive.

‘I don’t remember much and my head and neck still hurt but I am still alive. It could have been the seatbelt, the fact that I was still strapped in,’ he said.

‘But maybe it is fate. I believe in God and I thank him every day.’

Flight FR1879 had only been in the air for 10 minutes after leaving Thessaloniki, Greece, when the second engine failed, according to aviation tracker ADS-B Exchange.

A part of the engine crashed into the window by seat 11F while the plane was 20,000ft above North Macedonia.

The difference in air pressure between the skies and the cabin, called decompression, forced Ljubiša’s body out the window.

Svetlana, who was seated three rows behind her husband in 14C, described oxygen masks dangling from above and bottles flying around.

‘None of the cabin crew helped. It was the passengers,’ she said.

‘One man, I think he was an Albanian, was incredible. He did all he could to bring him in and then tried to block the window, first with a bag that was immediately sucked out and then with a suitcase, which worked. We are eternally grateful to him.’

When Svetlana and the passengers finally tugged an unconscious Ljubiša inside, his face was swollen and deformed because of the pressure.

‘My wife reminds me about that,’ said Ljubiša, who fainted two more times inside as the plane rapidly flew back to the airport.

Photos and videos of the cabin show passengers wearing oxygen masks, with one telling Greek station Radio Thessaloniki 94.5 that they assumed someone opened the emergency door.

‘There was a noise like a tyre bursting. There was panic with screaming, yelling and shouting because we immediately lost altitude from the decompression,’ they said.

The plane, which was headed to Memmingen, Germany, was operated by Malta Air, a subsidiary of Ryanair.

What has Ryanair said?

The low-cost Irish carrier said the aircraft turned back as a passenger window ‘dislodged inflight’ and said cabin crew did a ‘phenomenal job’.

Ryanair said: ‘As soon as the aircraft descended to a safe altitude, our cabin crew attended to and assisted Mr Karović, moving him to alternate seats (beside his wife) and arranged for a doctor onboard to sit with them until the aircraft landed safely back in Thessaloniki.

‘They also arranged to have medical assistance standing by on landing in Thessaloniki.’

Greek aviation officials are still investigating the case of the incident, which involved a Boeing 737 that has been flying since 2008.

Footage shared by aviation safety experts shows the fan blades of the craft were damaged.

The aircraft suffered another incident in 2023, when a tyre burst during takeoff from Milan, according to the Aviation Safety Network.

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