RYANAIR’S CEO has broken his silence after a smashed cabin window saw a terrified passenger “sucked up to his shoulders” out of the aircraft.
said initial findings suggest that “foreign object damage” caused the incident – not the age or servicing conditions of the aircraft.
Ryanair CEO Micheal O’Leary says finding suggest “foreign object damage” caused the incident Credit: Reuters
The ordeal took place on a plane travelling from Greece to Germany Credit: Getty
The 737-800 was travelling from Thessaloniki, Greece, to Memmingen, Germany, when passenger Ljubiša Karović, 61, was at 20,000ft.
Ljubiša was hospitalised with severe injuries after instant depressurisation sucked him into the gap, exposing his head and neck to brutal 370mph winds.
His wife, Svetlana, was able to grab hold of Ljubiša just in time, preventing him from being torn out of the aircraft.
In a harrowing admission, she told Serbian outlet Nova : “I reacted immediately and grabbed his legs. I thought: ‘If we die, we die together.’ It was horrible.”
Ljubiša Karović, 61, was pulled through the window at 20,000ft Credit: Reuters
Three brave bystanders then helped to pull back Ljubiša into the aircraft, which left the window exposed.
One witness told Radio Thessaloniki: “A noise was heard as if a tire had burst.
“There was panic with screams and voices because we immediately lost altitude from the decompression.
“For a moment I thought someone had accidentally opened the emergency door.
Another passenger told the outlet: “They grabbed him and held him down, fortunately he hadn’t taken off his seatbelt.
“His head was completely outside the plane. The girls who were next to him were pulling him. Some doctors also went to help him.”
Ljubiša was left wounded following the five-minute nightmare and suffered burns.
O’Leary said: “Initial indication would suggest it looks like a foreign object damage to the engine on takeoff at Thessaloniki, but we don’t have, we can’t say that definitively.”
The victim was travelling with his wife, Svetlana, at the time Credit: Facebook
Svetlana was able to grab her husband before he was sucked out of the plane Credit: Facebook/Svetlana Grkovic Maksimovic
He told analysts that despite the aircraft being 18 years old, its engine had been refurbished and fully serviced in the last two years.
O’Leary said that a draft report on the incident would be released within 28 days, followed by an in-depth report.
If the damage was caused by an external object, it would reduce Boeing’s and ‘s responsibility for the incident.
Following the incident, the couple’s lawyer, Vasilis Tsiaras, told The Sun how they desperately tried to stuff luggage into the gap.
He said: “There was a big hole that they tried to seal with a suitcase, which was a little bit soft and was sucked from the plane.
“They tried to do the same with more of a tough suitcase and managed to stop the flow of the air.”
Tsiaras also claimed only the day before the incident.
The lawyer alleged the plane had been forced to return to Thessaloniki airport shortly after taking off for Sarajevo, Bosnia.
He said: “At this time we cannot claim that the two incidents are connected, however there is a strong suspicion that the problem is related to engine maintenance, as that is where it all seems to have started.”
The airline claimed that the incident was caused by a disruptive passenger, who had to be returned to the airport and removed.
The US National Transportation Safety Board is currently investigating the latest incident.
Eze Chidiebere Paul
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