A passenger aboard a Ryanair subsidiary flight experienced a harrowing incident when he was pulled partway out of the aircraft following an in-flight window failure. The 61-year-old man, identified as Ljubisa Karović, was exposed to the external environment after engine complications led to damage that dislodged an acrylic window on the Malta Air-operated service from Thessaloniki, Greece to Memmingen, Germany.
According to his wife, Svetlana Grković, approximately half of her husband’s body extended outside the pressurized cabin for roughly two minutes. She described immediately grabbing his legs to prevent him from being completely ejected from the aircraft. With the assistance of two other passengers, Grković managed to pull her husband back inside despite the extreme cabin decompression. The incident occurred roughly ten minutes into the flight, during which tracking data indicated the aircraft descended approximately 9,000 feet.
The sudden pressure loss forced oxygen masks to deploy throughout the cabin as passengers experienced difficulty breathing. Multiple people evacuated their seats to relocate to other areas of the aircraft. Witnesses described the decompression as severe, with some passengers believing the aircraft was in critical danger. Karović lost consciousness on multiple occasions during the ordeal, likely due to oxygen deprivation and shock.
Carović sustained serious injuries including damage to his hand and burns, and remained hospitalized in Greece in a serious condition with limited memory of the event. His wife expressed gratitude toward fellow passengers who assisted in the rescue, particularly one man she believed to be Albanian whose name she did not retain. The aircraft returned to Thessaloniki airport and landed normally. A replacement aircraft was arranged to transport remaining passengers to their destination later the same day. Greek authorities initiated an investigation into the incident through the Hellenic Air and Rail Safety Investigation Authority.
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