Ryanair passenger sucked out of plane window could be about to earn millions
A lawyer who says he is representing the passengers of a Ryanair flight where a man was partially sucked out of a window claims he's going to sue the airline for millions of euros.
On 10 July a cabin window 'dislodged' shortly after take-off on a Ryanair flight from Thessaloniki, Greece to Germany, and Ljubiša Karović was the unfortunate passenger who was right by the window.
The 61-year-old Serbian ended up going out of the aircraft headfirst, and his wife Svetlana held onto his legs to stop him from being sucked out further.
She told Nova that she thought 'if we die, we die together' as she held onto her husband whose 'right shoulder and head were outside the plane', and two other passengers ultimately helped her pull him fully back inside the aircraft.
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Ljubiša went unconscious several times and suffered serious injuries to his hand along with burns, he was initially unable to speak and was told to wear a neck brace for six weeks.
Bild reports that lawyer Vasileios Tsiaras claims he's representing 36 of the people on board the plane, including Ljubiša, alleging that all of his clients 'faced death' on the flight.
US investigators are looking into what caused the plane window to break away and preliminary findings from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) say a fan blade from the engine broke away shortly after take-off.
They say this sent parts of the engine flying, which caused the window to shatter and opened the breach the man was partially sucked out of.
“Engine fragments breached the fuselage and the cabin depressurized,” investigators wrote in the report.
The NTSB found bird remains in the engine, which could indicate a bird strike caused the fan blade to break away, but Tsiaras claims 'birds alone could not have caused this extensive damage'.
"Whether we will take action against Ryanair, Boeing, the maintenance companies or the engine manufacturer – or against several of the aforementioned companies – we can only announce once the final report from the experts on the cause of the engine damage is available," the lawyer told Bild.
He said he was preparing legal action and a class action case could result in costs in the tens of millions of euros.
The final report from the NTSB's investigation has yet to be published and whether a lawsuit proceeds depends upon what they say.
The NTSB have already reprimanded Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary for suggesting 'foreign object damage' might have been the cause, releasing a letter reminding him not to talk about the investigation until it's finished.
O'Leary appeared on The Travel Expert podcast last month where he said the incident had been 'a very upsetting, traumatic experience for everybody on board' but claimed that Ljubiša 'did not, however, get sucked out the window and all these kind of nonsensical claims'.
The lawyer hit back at that, saying: "To say that no one was outside the aircraft is ridiculous.
"There are approximately 70 people on the plane who witnessed this.
"There is no doubt: Had the man not been wearing his seatbelt, he would have been sucked out the window and would not have survived."
Ryanair told LADbible they wouldn't be commenting until the NTSB investigation had ended.
Joe Harker