Ryanair passenger saved from being sucked out of plane after window breaks mid-flight
A man narrowly avoided being sucked out of a plane after a window became 'dislodged' during a Ryanair flight to Munich.
Passengers claim the cabin pressure plummeted, forcing oxygen masks to deploy, while the wind began billowing inside as the terrifying incident unfolded on Friday morning (10 July).
Video shared to social media appears to show a gaping hole in the Ryanair plane's fuselage where the window should be - which an unsuspecting 61-year-old bloke had been sat next to.
According to reports from local media, chaos erupted shortly after flight FR1879 took off from Macedonia Airport in Thessaloniki, Greece.
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The Boeing 737-800 was bound for Munich, Germany, when one of the windows in the cabin suddenly broke.
A man, who is said to hail from Serbia, was the unfortunate passenger who bagged the window seat during this flight - and those onboard claim he was almost dragged out of the aircraft.
Passengers described hearing a loud noise as the window shattered, before they watched the 61-year-old struggle to remain seated.
His wife reportedly clung onto her other half for dear life, according to Greek news outlet ProtoThema, while oxygen masks were released.
One eyewitness claimed that she saw the man's head 'completely outside the plane'.
Data from flight tracking website Flight Aware states that the plane was only in the air for just over an hour before it returned to Macedonia Airport.
Pilots made the decision to head back to Greece amid the safety concerns.
Window 'dislodged' mid-air, Ryanair says
In a statement shared with LADbible, 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."
Reports claim that the male passenger was taken to hospital with a neck injury in wake of the incident.
A pregnant woman was also taken to be checked over as a precaution. She is said to have had an ultrasound and was discharged as doctors did not notice anything of concern.
Michalis Giannakos who heads the Panhellenic Federation of Public Hospital Employees (POEDIN) described the incident as a 'near-tragedy' in a post on social media.
"The plane window broke, his body went up in the air, and his wife held him back for five minutes to keep him from leaving," he wrote.
"They managed, with the help of several passengers, to pull him into the cabin. The plane landed in Thessaloniki, probably in an emergency, and the injured passenger was taken to AHEPA.
"He is in shock, conscious and has friction burns. Tests are now being carried out."
A woman who was onboard the Ryanair flight shared her recollection of the incident with Radio Thessaloniki 94.5 and described how passengers descended into 'panic'.
"A noise was heard as if a tyre had burst," she said. "There was panic with screams, screams and voices because we immediately lost altitude from the decompression.
"For a moment I thought someone had accidentally opened the emergency door. The flight attendants lost it. We all immediately put on our masks.
"It seemed like a very long time before we understood what was happening."
The woman stated that luckily, the 61-year-old man seated next to the shattered window was wearing his seatbelt.
"They grabbed him and held him down, fortunately he hadn't taken off his seatbelt," she added. "His head was completely outside the plane.
"The girls who were next to him were pulling him. Some doctors also went to help him."
Topics: Ryanair, Travel, World News, Health
Olivia Burke