The wife of the man who was ‘sucked’ head-first through a broken window on a Ryanair flight at 20,000ft has described desperately trying to pull him back in as he repeatedly lost consciousness while stuck “outside up to his chest” for two minutes.
Svetlana Grković was travelling from Greece to Germany to see family with her husband, Ljubisa Karović, 61, when they heard a loud bang around half an hour after take-off. His passenger window was shattered by what appeared to be a part of the engine breaking off, causing sudden decompression.
”The pressure pulled Ljubisa. Luckily he was strapped in, but half of his body was sticking out of the plane. I immediately reacted and grabbed his legs,” she told Serbian outlet Nova. “I thought: ‘If we die, we die together’. It was horrible.”
She said her husband lost consciousness “several times” while hanging outside of the plane as other passengers rushed in to help hold him down last Friday.
“Three of us were pulling him back inside. The oxygen masks dropped and chaos broke out,” she told Greek outlet ERT. “They put a suitcase against the window but it was sucked out.”
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When they landed, he was immediately taken to the hospital in Thessaloniki, where he remains, apparently still unable to speak due to his injuries.
“He’s seriously injured and in shock. His hand is particularly badly injured, and he’s got burns. He’s not able to communicate, he doesn’t remember the whole event,” said Mrs Grković.
A fellow traveller, Christina, earlier told Radio Thessaloniki how, during the flight, there was a loud bang “like a tyre bursting” before the window ruptured. Flight tracking data shows the flight was in the air for around 10 minutes before quickly dropping around 2,700m.
“We immediately understood that there had been decompression because we had lost ground,” said Christina. “It’s what they show in TV series, and we were experiencing it at that moment. Screams, screams.”
“Fortunately, he hadn’t taken off his seat belt. The man had almost gone through the window with his shoulders. His whole head, neck and shoulders were outside the window,” she said.
Another passenger told German outlet Bild that following a loud bang, something smashed against the window, shattering it.
The pilot returned to Thessaloniki airport and Mr Grković was promptly taken to hospital in an ambulance, according to the witness. A second flight then ferried the other passengers to Germany.
Four people were taken to hospital, including one with minor injuries, according to Greek outlet Protothema. The other three were taken there for “precautionary reasons”.
Protothema reported that the plane’s engine had suffered a malfunction, citing unnamed sources. Ryanair did not comment on that report.
A spokesperson for Ryanair said: “A Ryanair flight from Thessaloniki to Memmingen on Friday morning (10 July) 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.”
