Ryanair boss makes claim about incident where man was 'sucked out of window' whilst on flight with wife
The boss of Ryanair has responded after a horrifying incident where a passenger was 'sucked out' of a plane window.
Ljubisa Karović, and his wife Svetlana were travelling from Thessaloniki, Greece to Memmingen, Germany, on Ryanair flight FR1879.
Moments after the plane took off, Karović had settled into window seat 11C when he recalls hearing a sound like an 'explosion' as the window broke, causing the cabin to lose pressure.
Terrifyingly, due to the pressure change, Karović was then 'sucked out' of the window, leaving his head and shoulders outside the aircraft.
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His wife had been seated three rows behind him, in 14C, and she ran to grab hold of his legs to keep him inside the plane.
In an interview with Serbian-language outlet Nova she recalled how she put herself at risk: "I reacted immediately and grabbed his legs. I thought: 'If we die, we die together.' It was horrible."
A 'foreign object'
In the wake of the incident, Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary has told the press that while the investigation is in its early days, they have some idea of what might have caused it.
He said initial investigations suggest 'it looks like a foreign object damage to the engine on takeoff at Thessaloniki but... we can't say that definitively'.
According to The Sun, he said that even though the Boeing 737-800 was 18 years old, the engine had undergone a refurbishment and service in the last two years.
The boss added that a draft report of the incident investigation would be released within 28 days, which would then be followed by an in-depth report.
A lawyer acting for the couple, Vasilis Tsiaras, told the outlet how passengers tried to block the gap with luggage.
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.”
'Alive by mistake'
He went on to say that his client is 'alive by mistake' after what happened, and his odds of surviving it.
“Ljubisa dipped in and out of death, when the cabin lost pressure he was hurled out of the window from his chest up and immediately lost consciousness," he explained.
"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 (370mph)".
Karović says he has been 'destroyed' mentally following the incident.
Wearing a neck brace after he was finally released from hospital, the survivor told The Guardian: “It’s the noise before the chaos, the noise that is always there when I close my eyes to sleep.”
He added: "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."
Topics: Travel, World News
Jen Thomas