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Published 11:10 27 Jul 2026 GMT
A man who was nearly sucked out of a Ryanair plane after a window came loose has revealed the shocking response he received from the airline.
Ljubiša Karović, 61, was flying from Thessaloniki, Greece, to Memmingen, Germany, on July 10 when a cabin window reportedly dislodged shortly after takeoff, leaving him hanging head-first outside the aircraft.
The passenger revealed in an interview with the Daily Mail that the only contact his family received from the airline was an email sent to his son, who booked the tickets.
"All we've had is emails to my son, who booked our flights, asking if we want to rebook and asking how I was. But nobody from the company has contacted me directly, not even a phone call to show any concern," he said.
Ljubiša's wife, Svetlana, was sitting three rows behind him when the incident happened.
She told Serbian outlet Nova that half of her husband's body "was sticking out of the plane."
"I immediately reacted and grabbed his legs. I thought: 'If we die, we die together'. It was horrible."
With the help of two passengers, she managed to pull him back inside. Ljubiša reportedly lost consciousness several times.
Svetlana also claimed the cabin crew "didn't do anything" and praised the passengers who rushed to help.
According to The Guardian, one passenger even tried to block the broken window with a bag before using a suitcase.
"None of the cabin crew helped. It was the passengers," she said. "One man, I think he was an Albanian, was incredible. He did all he could to bring him in and then tried to block the window, first with a bag that was immediately sucked out and then with a suitcase, which worked. We are eternally grateful to him."
"I don’t know their names, but I am eternally grateful to them. May God protect them wherever they go. Without them, my husband would be dead," she added.
Ljubiša suffered burns to his face and right arm, along with neck and shoulder injuries.
Doctors have told him to wear a neck brace for six weeks and say he may need surgery if the pain does not improve.
The passenger said he still struggles with memories of the incident.
"The explosion is what I remember," he said. "It's the noise before the chaos, the noise that is always there when I close my eyes to sleep.
"They tell me I fainted twice and again inside the plane and that my face was briefly swollen and deformed because of the pressure, the rush of air," he continued. "I am lucky...I don't remember much and my head and neck still hurt, but I am still alive."
"It could have been the seatbelt, the fact that I was still strapped in. But maybe it is fate. I believe in God and I thank him every day," he added.
The couple has hired lawyer Vasilis Tsiaras, who said he wants those responsible to be held accountable.
"My client came back from the brink of death, and we want to make sure that whoever is responsible for this is held accountable," he said. "It is not just about compensation but about establishing the truth as to what happened and the condition of this aircraft."
He also told The Guardian: "When the cabin lost pressure, [Ljubisa] was hurled out of the window from his chest up and immediately lost consciousness."
"He was on that plane heading to Germany to celebrate his brother’s birthday. Instead, at 15,000ft he ended up with his head and right arm outside the aircraft as it moved at a speed of more than 600km/h. Imagine that! He looked at death, that other world, and came back," he added.
While criticizing the cabin crew, Tsiaras commended the flight's pilots.
"We have no complaint with the pilot, who followed the safety protocols and dealt with the situation very well," he said.
However, he alleged: "My client fainted two or three times, once outside the aircraft when he was partially sucked out of the window, and twice inside when, again, he lost consciousness. At no point did the cabin crew offer to help."
Tsiaras further claimed witness testimony suggested "everyone agreed that the crew was in a state of shock, afraid that the plane was about to crash," and that passengers were the ones who "rallied" to assist.
Ryanair says its cabin crew followed emergency procedures and assisted Ljubiša once the plane had safely descended.
Chief financial officer Neil Sorahan also defended the airline's safety record.
"We operate at the highest standards of European aviation regulations," he said. "We have a relatively young fleet and are very pleased with safety and maintenance within Ryanair group."
"There [have been] literally hundreds of millions of flights on these [Boeing 737] aircraft globally since they first came into being. They are probably the safest aircraft ever built, they are highly maintained and we have very well-trained crew."
Sorahan said Ryanair had "actively" maintained contact with Ljubiša and Svetlana since the incident.
The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is leading the investigation into what happened, with Ryanair saying it is "participating fully" in the inquiry.
As for Ljubiša, he says his focus remains on recovering from an experience he will never forget.
"This incident has completely turned my life upside down. I fear that I’ll never be able to live and work the way I used to," he shared. "I’m not able to go anywhere at the moment, and the thought of getting on a plane absolutely terrifies me."
"I want to recover and overcome this because I once led a very happy and beautiful life, but I know that it’s going to take me a long time," he concluded.
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Published 15:31 16 Aug 2024 GMT
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Published 09:08 14 Jul 2026 GMT
Further details have been revealed about the condition of a man who was partially sucked out of a Ryanair plane window by passengers who witnessed the terrifying incident.
As previously reported, a male passenger - identified only as being a 61-year-old Serbian national - had his head and shoulders sucked out of the plane when a window dislodged, leaving his wife desperately holding onto him.
According to reports, the incident allegedly happened on a Ryanair flight on a Boeing 737-800 plane, traveling from Thessaloniki, Greece, to Memmingen, Germany.
The Daily Mail reports that the jet had been flying for around 30 minutes before it was forced to turn back and make an emergency landing back at its departure airport after a window fell out.
Tracking data shows the plane was in the air for around 10 minutes when it abruptly dropped 9,000ft (2,700m), as witnesses claimed they heard "some kind of explosion", per the BBC.
The outlet stated that a Greek hospital official claimed the man being treated was a 61-year-old Serbian national, who'd received friction burns in the incident.
German newspaper BILD stated that a window had shattered, causing the man who was sitting in the seat right by it to be partially pulled out of the aircraft.
The man's wife reportedly held onto his legs for around five minutes to stop him being pulled further out, until other passengers stepped in to help pull him back into the cabin.
A witness told Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf that the man had suffered burns and was "bleeding" from his head, adding: "We thought we were falling. He had blood on his head. He fainted several times."
Another passenger, Christina, told Radio Thessaloniki: "We immediately realised there had been a decompression. There were screams... for a moment I thought someone had accidentally opened the emergency door.
"The masks dropped and there was a strong smell. The head and shoulders of one passenger were outside the window. Fortunately, he hadn't taken off his seat belt."
Sofia, another passenger on board the flight, added: "When the oxygen masks dropped, we had no idea what was going to happen. We didn't know whether we would make it back.
"We were sitting at the back of the aircraft, and we realised there had been some kind of explosion.
"We thought the plane was going down. The decompression was extreme. It felt like we couldn't breathe.
"The man who was injured was bleeding and then lost consciousness several times, most likely because of the lack of oxygen and the shock."
Ryanair said in a statement: "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"
Published 10:18 13 Jul 2026 GMT
A Ryanair passenger narrowly avoided being pulled from a plane after a window reportedly shattered shortly after take-off, leaving fellow passengers scrambling to stop him from being pulled further outside.
The incident happened last Friday aboard a Boeing 737-800 that departed Thessaloniki, Greece, at around 5:55AM bound for Memmingen, Germany.
Fortunately, while his head and shoulders were outside the shattered window, the rest of his body remained secured in his seat by his seatbelt.
According to CNN Greece, the passenger, identified only as a 61-year-old Serbian man, remained strapped into his seat by his seatbelt as the window failed while the aircraft was climbing to approximately 20,000 feet.
One passenger told Radio Thessaloniki, via Agence France-Presse, that they first heard a loud bang.
"There was a noise like a tire bursting," they recalled.
Passengers later learned that part of the aircraft's engine had reportedly broken away and struck the window, causing it to shatter.
"We immediately realised there had been a decompression. There were screams … for a moment I thought someone had accidentally opened the emergency door," the passenger said.
They added: "The masks dropped and there was a strong smell. The head and shoulders of one passenger were outside the window. Fortunately, he hadn't taken off his seat belt."
According to Michalis Giannakos, president of the Panhellenic Federation of Public Hospital Employees, other passengers rushed to stop the man from being pulled further outside.
"His wife held him down for five minutes so he wouldn't get out," Giannakos said, according to Enikos.
"With the help of many passengers, they managed to pull him into the cabin."
The flight was forced to turn around and safely returned to Thessaloniki, where passengers were transferred onto another aircraft to continue their journey to Germany.
The injured passenger was reportedly treated for friction burns.
In a statement provided to The New York Post, a Ryanair spokesperson 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 airline added: "The aircraft landed normally and passengers returned to the terminal. One passenger requested and received medical assistance on the ground in Thessaloniki."
Published 07:17 26 May 2025 GMT
If you have a fear of flying, it may be best to avoid this pilot's terrifying story about the moment he found himself dangling out of an airplane window.
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As reported by The Sun, the incident in question occurred on June 10, 1990 - just 27 minutes after a routine takeoff by British Airways flight 5390, which was traveling from Birmingham in the United Kingdom to Malaga in Spain with 81 passengers onboard.
Despite everything going as it should for the first part of the flight, the crew was faced with a potential disaster just as the plane was traveling over Oxfordshire. While cruising at a height of 23,000 feet, two of the six cockpit windows burst apart due to adverse air pressure effects.
The dramatic change in pressure saw Captain Tim Lancaster ripped from his seat and through one of the broken windows.
Despite the fact that a rush of air had blasted the cockpit door off its hinges, flight attendant Nigel Ogden was able to rush into the cockpit and grab the Lancaster's legs before he was sucked completely out of the plane.
Watch Lancaster and the crew recall the horrifying incident in the video below:
Another cabin crew member, John Heward, also grabbed the captain, and the two men held onto him for dear life while co-pilot Alistair Atchinson grappled with the controls and landed the plane at Southampton Airport - despite never flying to the airport before in his career.
Per News.com.au, Ogden later commented on the frightening experience in an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald, stating: "I whipped round and saw the front windscreen had disappeared and Tim, the pilot, was going out through it. He had been sucked out of his seatbelt and all I could see were his legs."
Ogden continued: "I jumped over the control column and grabbed him round his waist to avoid him going out completely. His shirt had been pulled off his back and his body was bent upwards, doubled over round the top of the aircraft.
"His legs were jammed forward, disconnecting the autopilot, and the flight door was resting on the controls, sending the plane hurtling down at nearly 650 kilometers per hour through some of the most congested skies in the world."
Ogden added: "I was still holding Tim, but my arms were getting weaker, and then he slipped. I thought I was going to lose him, but he ended up bent in a U-shape around the windows."
The crew recalled how Lancaster's face was banging against the window, with blood coming out of his nose and the side of his head. The captain's eyes were also wide open, a sight that Ogden says he'll "never forget".
While communicating with air traffic control, Atchinson recalled believing his co-pilot had surely died as a result of the incident.
Half of Lancaster's body remained outside of the plane for around 20 minutes.
Per News.com.au, Lancaster suffered several fractures and frostbite but lived to fly again. In fact, he continued to fly with BA until 2003, after which, he joined EasyJet for a further five years.
Ogden also left BA and went to work for the Salvation Army.
A report by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch later determined that a fitter had used the wrong bolts to secure the windscreen, which led to the accident.
Additionally, aviation experts told National Geographic that if the crew had let go of the captain's body, it could have struck the wing and caused damage that could have resulted in devastating consequences.
Published 15:24 09 Nov 2022 GMT
A six-year-old boy was left in tears after an "IT glitch" meant someone else was sitting in his pre-booked window seat on a flight.
Ryan Bandli, who is a nervous flyer, was heartbroken the entire flight home to Manchester, England, from Budapest after he realized a passenger was sitting in the seat he'd chosen.
His mother, Adi Bandli, told The Mirror that her son is a "very reactive" child who struggles with flying, so to keep him calm in the air, she reserves the window seat for him.
Adi revealed that she paid an additional fee for the tickets on Ryanair's Polish subsidiary, Buzz, only to discover that a female passenger was already sitting in it.
When the mother told the passenger that she'd booked the seat for her son, it became clear that the woman had also been booked onto the same window seat by Ryanair.
She then showed them her exact seat reservation and refused to move, prompting the flight attendants to allocate Ryan to an aisle seat.
"Ryan was really upset and anxious and he cried," Adi said. "He didn’t understand how this could happen. We sat separately and it was really stressful."
"My poor child was crying. People gave him sweets and were so kind. How can something like this happen?" she said, explaining that her son spent most of the flight in tears.
The mother said the incident occurred in August and said that she had paid extra for three separate pre-booked seat reservations, costing between £15 ($17) and £30 ($34).
As she paid extra knowing that Ryanair could separate families if they don't secure seating, Adi said that she is still waiting for an explanation and compensation from the airline.
She told The Mirror that the budget airline rejected her request for compensation and informed her that the seat was given to another individual because it was by an emergency exit.
"The CAA requires that UK airlines have procedures to ensure that customers are seated where, in the event that an emergency evacuation is required, they may best assist and not hinder evacuation from the aeroplane," an employee at the airline wrote to Adi, per the outlet.
"Only those customers who appear reasonably fit, strong, and able to assist the rapid evacuation of the aeroplane in an emergency should be allocated seats that permit direct access to emergency exits," they added.
Under the rules, children are not deemed eligible passengers to sit by the exit, however, the mother refutes this and said that they were not sitting in an emergency exit row.
Furthermore, the outlet reported that the company issued a statement to the family, referring to their Polish subsidiary, and said: "This Buzz passenger’s seat was not sold twice; this misunderstanding was as a result of an isolated IT glitch."
"Unfortunately, as the flight was fully booked, there were no other window seats available. Buzz regrets the inconvenience caused to Ms. Bandli and her son and a member of our customer services team has contacted them directly," they added.
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