On Friday morning, July 10th, a Boeing 737 aircraft operated by Ryanair experienced a terrifying incident of “window rupture and displacement” mid-air. The cabin suddenly suffered rapid decompression, causing a man in his sixties from Serbia to be partially sucked out of the window due to the strong airflow, leaving him hanging outside the aircraft.
Fortunately, surrounding passengers and his wife worked together to desperately hold onto his legs, thus saving his life amidst the harrowing situation. The plane then made an emergency landing at Thessaloniki Airport in Greece.
The flight, originally bound for Memmingen, Germany, took off and climbed to 16,000 feet when a huge bang was heard inside the cabin, followed by the window shattering. A passenger on the same aircraft, Christina, recalled to a local radio station, “There was an instant of screams on the scene, for a moment, I thought someone had opened the emergency door. Oxygen masks immediately dropped down, and a strong odor filled the air.”
She mentioned, “One passenger’s head and shoulders were outside the window. Thankfully, he had not unbuckled his seatbelt.”
After the window ruptured, the man’s head was hanging downward outside the window, struggling for several minutes in the extremely low temperatures at high altitudes. At that moment, his wife and other passengers rushed to his aid and managed to pull him back inside the cabin. The man was then taken to the hospital with multiple friction burns and severe shock, but his condition is now stable.
Ryanair confirmed in a statement that the flight had to return due to a passenger window displacement during the flight and the aircraft eventually landed safely. One passenger received medical assistance on the ground, and the remaining passengers were later transferred to their destination by a replacement aircraft.
Greek and German media reported that passengers generally believed the aircraft engine malfunctioned, and the debris from the engine had shattered the acrylic window of the cabin, leading to the pressure loss incident.
The aircraft, operated by Ryanair’s subsidiary Malta Air, has been in service for 18 years. FlightRadar24 data showed that the aircraft had previously made an emergency return shortly after takeoff when flying to Sarajevo on Thursday evening for unknown reasons.
The Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) stated that they will fully assist Greek and Maltese authorities in conducting a joint investigation.
In 2018, on a Southwest Airlines flight in the United States, damaged engine debris caused a window to rupture, leading to a passenger being partially sucked out of the window and tragically resulting in their death.