Wife’s desperate grip saves husband from being sucked out of blown out Ryanair plane window mid-flight
A horrified wife has described the desperate moments she clung to her husband’s legs as he was nearly dragged headfirst on a Ryanair flight after the cabin window exploded during the flight.
“I thought, ‘If we die, we die together,'” Svetlana Grkovic said after her husband, Ljubisa Karovic, was partially dragged through a shattered window during the horrific incident in Europe.
He said the 61-year-old passenger’s head and right shoulder were stuck outside the plane for almost two minutes before he and two other passengers managed to pull him back inside.
“His face was completely deformed and blood was flowing from his nose and mouth,” Ms. Grkovic told Serbian media.
The nightmare unfolded shortly after a Ryanair flight from Thessaloniki, Greece, to Memmingenin, Germany, took off on Friday.
About 10 minutes into the flight, passengers reported hearing a loud explosion before the plane rapidly lost cabin pressure and plummeted to approximately 9,000 ft as the pilots returned to Thessaloniki for an emergency landing.
Passengers described scenes of panic as oxygen levels dropped and people screamed in fear.
Some said they initially believed the emergency exit door had been opened before realizing the passenger window had been blown out.
Mrs. Grkovic believes that fragments from the plane’s right engine entered through the window next to her husband, although investigators have not confirmed this theory.
A technical advisor appointed by the family also suggested that the engine failure may have sent debris into the cabin, triggering decompression.
Although Mr. Karovic was partially pulled out of the plane, he survived because he wore his seat belt and allowed other passengers to restrain him.
He suffered serious injuries, including burns and severe trauma to his arm and face. He remains in the hospital.
“My husband is seriously injured and is in shock,” said Mrs. Grkovic. “He doesn’t remember everything that happened.”
He admitted that he too was struggling to cope after believing the plane was going to crash.
“Every time he hears planes he starts shaking,” Ms. Grkovic said.
“I’m in a very bad situation psychologically… I can’t get those images out of my mind.”
In a statement, Ryanair confirmed that the plane returned to Thessaloniki “due to the passenger window becoming dislodged during the flight shortly after take-off”.
The Boeing 737-800 landed safely and one passenger received medical attention, the airline said.
Authorities in Greece launched an investigation into the incident along with international aviation experts, including representatives from Boeing, the US Federal Aviation Administration and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency.
