Ryanair Passenger Nearly Sucked Out of Plane Window

A Ryanair passenger was reportedly pulled halfway out of a shattered aircraft window mid-flight, according to fellow travellers on board. The Ryanair window incident happened on a Boeing 737-800 flying from Thessaloniki, Greece, to Memmingen, Germany, on Friday morning.

The plane took off on schedule at 5.55am local time, but shortly after reaching around 20,000ft, passengers heard a loud bang. A witness told the German Press Agency that a window smashed, and footage of the aftermath quickly circulated on social media. A man seated next to the window was then pulled towards the gap, with his head and shoulders sticking outside the aircraft.

His wife held onto his legs for roughly five minutes until other passengers managed to drag him back inside as oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling. The pilot immediately decided to turn the jet around and return to Thessaloniki, landing safely after one hour and 14 minutes in the air, according to publicly available flight data.

The injured man is believed to be a 61-year-old Serbian national. He suffered a neck wound along with abrasions and burns, according to Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, and remains conscious but in shock. A pregnant woman also on board was taken to hospital as a precaution but has since been discharged in good health, local media reported.

A Ryanair spokesman confirmed the flight returned to Thessaloniki after a “passenger window dislodged inflight,” adding that the aircraft “landed normally and passengers returned to the terminal.” The airline said one passenger received medical assistance on the ground and that a replacement aircraft was arranged to carry travellers on to Memmingen, departing at 9.53am.

Greek media suggest the Ryanair window incident may have been triggered by debris breaking away from one of the plane’s engines while flying over North Macedonia. The president of the Panhellenic Federation of Public Hospital Employees said there was ‘almost a tragedy’, noting the damaged window gave way before the man was restrained by his wife and fellow travellers.

A witness told local radio, ‘A noise was heard as if a tire had burst. There was panic with screams, screams and voices because we immediately lost altitude from the decompression.’ She added, ‘For a moment I thought someone had accidentally opened the emergency door. The flight attendants lost it. We all immediately put on our masks.’ Regarding the injured man, she said, ‘They grabbed him and held him down; fortunately, he hadn’t taken off his seatbelt. His head was completely outside the plane.’

This is not the first such aviation safety scare involving a shattered window. In April 2018, Jennifer Riordan, a mother-of-two from New Mexico, died after engine debris smashed a window on a Southwest Airlines flight, pulling her partway out of the aircraft. Seven other passengers were hurt before the plane made an emergency landing in Philadelphia. A month later, a Sichuan Airlines co-pilot was ‘sucked halfway out’ of the cockpit when a windshield blew out at 32,000ft, forcing the captain to land the plane manually.

More recently, Boeing has faced intense scrutiny after a door plug blew out mid-flight above Oregon in January 2024. Investigators later discovered the company could not produce security footage or records showing who carried out repair work on the affected panel months earlier, deepening concerns around airline safety standards.

Would you feel safe flying again after hearing about this incident?