A passenger was partially sucked out of a shattered airplane window on a Ryanair flight Friday after debris from the plane’s engine smashed through the cabin shortly after takeoff, according to multiple reports.
The Boeing 737-800 had climbed to over 16,000 feet when pieces of the plane’s engine broke away and shattered the window next to a 61-year-old Serbian passenger. His head and shoulders were forced through the opening, but his wife and passengers held onto his legs for several minutes until the aircraft descended and the cabin pressure stabilized.
“Fortunately, he hadn’t taken off his seat belt,” one witness said.
The flight departed Greece at 5:55 a.m. bound for Germany. About 10 minutes later, the aircraft rapidly descended nearly 10,000 feet after the engine debris struck the window.
Passengers said they heard a sound “like a tire bursting” during the incident.
“We immediately realized there had been a decompression,” a passenger named Christina told Radio Thessaloniki. “There were screams … for a moment I thought someone had accidentally opened the emergency door.”
Masks dropped in the aircraft, and there was a “strong smell.”
“We thought the plane was going down,” another passenger named Sofia told Radio Thessaloniki. “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.”
The plane returned to Thessaloniki in Greece, and the passengers were rebooked on another flight.
The passenger sustained friction burns and remained hospitalized but conscious, according to Michalis Giannakos, president of the Panhellenic Federation of Public Hospital Employees.
The incident drew comparisons to a Southwest Airlines flight in 2018, when engine debris shattered a cabin window at 32,000 feet. A passenger was partially pulled from the aircraft before fellow travelers brought her back inside. She later died from her injuries.
