A 61-year-old passenger was partially pulled out of a dislodged airplane window by fellow travelers shortly after a flight departed from northern Greece to Germany on Friday. The incident occurred on a Malta Air flight, a subsidiary of Europe’s largest budget carrier, Ryanair, which subsequently returned to Thessaloniki airport.
The passenger, whose name was not released, sustained neck and shoulder injuries along with friction burns, according to an anonymous Greek hospital official. It was not immediately clear if the injured individual remained hospitalized later that day.
The morning flight was en route from Thessaloniki to Memmingen, near Munich. Ryanair confirmed the incident in a statement, noting that the flight “returned to Thessaloniki shortly after takeoff when a passenger window dislodged in-flight.”
Passengers recounted hearing a loud bang, after which oxygen masks deployed and the aircraft began to lose altitude. One passenger, identified only as Christina, told Radio Thessaloniki that most people had fallen asleep and closed their eyes when they heard a sound. Some passengers panicked and screamed as a man was partially sucked out of the window. She described how “His whole head, neck, shoulders” were pulled out before those seated nearby managed to pull him back inside. Christina likened the initial sound to “a tire bursting… but very loud,” adding that they knew straight away they had lost pressure because they lost altitude. She also recalled “screams, shrieks, shouting” during the ordeal.
While the airline has not specified the cause of the window dislodgement, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) reported being notified that the flight turned back due to “a right engine issue and cabin decompression.” Ryanair did not immediately respond to an inquiry regarding the engine issue.
The NTSB, the U.S. federal agency for transportation incident investigations, stated its readiness to assist in the probe. The investigation will be spearheaded by the Aircraft Accident and Incident Investigation Committee of the Republic of North Macedonia, as international aviation rules dictate that the country whose airspace the incident occurred in takes the lead. The agency in North Macedonia, which borders Greece to the north, did not immediately provide a comment.
Short videos shared by Radio Thessaloniki captured scenes from inside the plane, showing passengers wearing oxygen masks after the cabin lost pressure. One video appeared to show the blown-out window with a man nearby wearing an oxygen mask, while another, seemingly filmed after landing, depicted first responders in the aisle.
Shye Gilad, a former airline pilot and instructor at Georgetown University’s business school, highlighted the critical importance of keeping seatbelts fastened while seated. He explained that a rapid decompression can generate a brief but powerful suction near a breach in the cabin before pressure stabilizes. Gilad emphasized that “The seatbelt can help in those first few seconds. It’s a difference maker and people should keep their seatbelts fastened at all times,” though he noted that such incidents are “very rare” because “it takes a lot to breach a cabin.”
The aircraft involved was a Boeing 737-800, capable of seating up to 189 passengers. Flight-tracking site Flightradar24 indicated that the narrow-body plane was delivered new to Ryanair in 2008. Flight records show the aircraft climbed past 15,000 feet (4,570 meters) approximately six minutes after departure, then immediately descended to about 6,000 feet (1,830 meters) to “burn fuel for 30 minutes” before returning to Thessaloniki roughly an hour after takeoff.
The plane landed without incident, and passengers were returned to the terminal. Ryanair confirmed that one passenger requested and received medical assistance on the ground in Thessaloniki, and a replacement aircraft was subsequently arranged to transport passengers to Germany.
The Ryanair desk is seen, Aug. 10, 2018, at the Barajas airport in Madrid, Spain. (AP Photo/Paul White, File)
AP correspondent Ed Donahue reports on a shocking incident in the airways.
