A Ryanair passenger was reportedly partially sucked out of a plane midflight on Friday morning after a window shattered next to him.
The 61-year-old man was flying from Greece to Germany when the window broke, pulling him headfirst out the window, The Guardian reported, citing Greek news website Newsit.
A Ryanair spokesperson confirmed to HuffPost that a passenger window “dislodged inflight” shortly after takeoff from Thessaloniki, in northern Greece.
It happened after a piece of the plane’s engine broke off and smashed the window, two people with knowledge of the incident told Reuters.
“The aircraft landed normally and passengers returned to the terminal,” the Ryanair spokesperson said. A passenger on the plane requested and received medical assistance on the ground, while a replacement aircraft was arranged to continue the flight to Memmingen, in southern Germany, the spokesperson added.
“There were screams … for a moment I thought someone had accidentally opened the emergency door,” a passenger named Christina told Radio Thessaloniki, according to the BBC. “The masks dropped and there was a strong smell. The head and shoulders of one passenger were outside the window. Fortunately, he hadn’t taken off his seat belt.”
Videos posted on social media appear to show the broken window in the plane with oxygen masks hanging throughout the cabin.
In 2018, a woman died after a window broke on a Southwest Airlines flight in the U.S., partially sucking her out of the plane. That incident occurred after engine shrapnel struck the fuselage.
The woman, who was wearing her seat belt at the time, died from blunt force trauma to her head, neck and torso, an investigation found.
