A 61-year-old Serbian man was partially pulled from a Boeing 737-800 when an engine part struck his window shortly after takeoff from Greece.
1:55 PM
A Ryanair flight from Thessaloniki, Greece, to Memmingen Airport in Bavaria made an emergency return Friday after a passenger window broke during flight, with a 61-year-old Serbian man partially pulled outside the aircraft by the resulting pressure difference.
Flight FR1879, operated by Ryanair subsidiary Malta Air, departed Thessaloniki at 5:55 a.m. local time. Shortly after takeoff, when the Boeing 737-800 reached approximately 20,000 feet, passengers heard a loud noise described as sounding like a tire bursting. A piece of the aircraft's engine had broken off and struck the passenger window, shattering it.
The pressure differential created by the broken window pulled the man's head and shoulders outside the fuselage. His wife held his legs to prevent him from being pulled further out, while other passengers assisted in the rescue effort. The man's seat belt, which remained fastened, also helped limit how far he was drawn from the aircraft.
Oxygen masks deployed automatically throughout the cabin as a precaution following the decompression. Passengers in the affected row were relocated. The crew descended below 10,000 feet, and the aircraft returned to Thessaloniki airport for an emergency landing.
According to flight tracking data from FlightRadar24, the aircraft was airborne for just over an hour and reached 16,000 feet before beginning its descent. The passenger struck his head during the incident, according to reports.
Ryanair confirmed in a statement that a passenger window had detached during the flight and that one person received medical attention. The airline did not immediately specify the cause of the window failure. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration confirmed the aircraft was a Boeing 737 NG and that a window had broken. Boeing did not immediately comment on the incident.
Witnesses described moments of panic aboard the flight. One passenger told Radio Thessaloniki that the noise sounded like an explosion, and that passengers immediately realized a decompression had occurred. Another passenger reported hearing screams and alarmed voices as the situation unfolded, describing the period before understanding what had happened as feeling like an eternity.
The cause of the window failure remains under investigation by authorities.
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