Greece, July 11: A man was in danger of falling out after the window of a Ryanair flight from Greece to Germany “separated” mid-flight. The incident took place on Friday, and according to airline officials, other passengers managed to pull him in because the passenger was not wearing his seat belt.
The passenger was a Serbian tourist traveling from Thessaloniki, Greece, to Memmingen, Germany. He suffered burns in the collision and was hospitalized.
Fellow passengers said they were woken up by the sound of a tire bursting and a scream, and then found the passenger with his head and shoulder out the window.
“Most of us were asleep, we had our eyes closed. It sounded like a tire bursting,” a fellow passenger told Radio Thessaloniki.
“We immediately realized that there was decompression. There were screams … for a moment I thought someone had accidentally opened the emergency door,” the woman said. “One passenger had his head and shoulders outside the window. Luckily, he hadn’t taken off his seat belt.”
Fellow passengers said other passengers who were with the man helped pull him in. According to Greek media, the window was broken by a piece of debris that had broken off one of the plane’s engines. The incident occurred over North Macedonia.
The plane “returned to Thessaloniki shortly after takeoff, during which a passenger window broke off. The plane landed normally and the passengers returned to the terminal,” Ryanair said in a statement.
The Irish airline said a replacement flight had been arranged to send the remaining passengers to Memmingen.