A Ryanair passenger has been left with his head and shoulders hanging outside an aircraft after a cabin window detached in mid-air, with fellow travellers dragging him back into his seat.
Flight FR1879, a Boeing 737-800 bound for Memmingen in southern Germany, turned back to Thessaloniki in northern Greece shortly after take-off on July 10.
The injured man, a tourist from Serbia aged 61, was taken to hospital in Thessaloniki with friction burns but was otherwise in good condition, authorities said. He was due to undergo a scan to establish whether he had suffered any fractures.
Greek media reported that debris from one of the aircraft’s engines had struck the window while the plane was over North Macedonia. Greek authorities said there was no crack or breach in the fuselage, despite initial concerns over the damage.
A woman on board described a bang followed by the loss of cabin pressure.
“There was a noise, like a tyre bursting,” she told Radio Thessaloniki, adding that oxygen masks dropped, a strong smell filled the cabin and passengers screamed. She said the man beside the window had kept his seat belt fastened, and that those seated near him pulled him back in.
Another eyewitness told Greek broadcaster ERT that the man’s head and shoulders had been outside the aircraft.
The president of the Panhellenic Federation of Public Hospital Employees said the incident had been “almost a tragedy”, claiming the damaged window gave way and that part of the passenger’s body was pulled outside before his wife restrained him.
The Irish carrier played down the sequence of events in a brief statement.
Ryanair said the flight “returned to Thessaloniki shortly after takeoff when a passenger window detached during the flight”, adding that the aircraft landed normally and passengers returned to the terminal. It said one passenger requested and received medical assistance on the ground.
A replacement aircraft was made available to carry the remaining passengers on to Germany, the airline said.
The pilots declared an emergency before landing at Thessaloniki’s Macedonia Airport, where fire crews, ambulances and police were placed on standby. The return leg is understood to have taken about 20 minutes.
Greek aviation authorities have opened an investigation into the engine failure.
Ryanair is Europe’s largest airline by passenger numbers and flies a fleet built around the Boeing 737 across the European Union and beyond. The Boeing 737 family has faced sustained regulatory scrutiny in Europe and the United States since a door plug blew out of an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 in January 2024.
