New footage emerges from inside Ryanair plane cabin in the moments after window shattered at 16,000ft and sucked a passenger out
New footage has emerged showing the moments inside a Ryanair aircraft after a passenger was partially sucked out of a shattered cabin window mid-flight. Ljubisa Karovic, 61, was seated in seat 11F on a flight from Thessaloniki, Greece, to Memmingen, Germany, on 10 July when his head, arm and shoulder were pulled through the window roughly 20 minutes after take-off, at an altitude of about 16,000ft. It is understood that broken engine parts struck the window, causing rapid cabin decompression, while fellow passengers fought to hold onto him and his wife clung desperately to keep him inside.
Footage recovered by 60 Minutes Australia shows passengers donning oxygen masks amid flying glass and rushing wind as bystanders struggled for up to two minutes to pull Mr Karovic back into the cabin. He spent six days in hospital and has since suffered ongoing neck and shoulder pain, requiring a neck brace for six weeks, as well as burns to his face and arm from the high-velocity wind. The US National Transportation Safety Board is leading the investigation, as the Boeing aircraft was built in America; a preliminary report found a fan blade had broken, though the cause remains undetermined, and maintenance records show four suspected bird strikes to the same engine in the preceding year. Ryanair has said it will not comment further until the investigation concludes.
- Ryanair passenger partly sucked out of window at 16,000ft on 10 July
- New footage shows chaotic scramble by passengers to pull him back in
- NTSB investigating; preliminary report points to a broken fan blade
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Ryanair is a large budget airline that flies short-haul routes across Europe. On 10 July, one of its Boeing aircraft was travelling from Thessaloniki in Greece to Memmingen in Germany when a cabin window broke roughly 20 minutes into the flight, at a cruising height of about 16,000ft. Passenger Ljubisa Karovic, 61, was seated next to the window and was partially pulled outside the plane by the force of the escaping air, while those around him tried to hold him in place.
The incident is believed to have been triggered by a fault in one of the plane's engines, where broken parts struck the window and caused the cabin to suddenly lose pressure. Because the aircraft was manufactured in the United States, the US National Transportation Safety Board is responsible for investigating what happened, working alongside the standard process used for serious airline safety incidents. Mr Karovic was hospitalised and has continued to experience injuries from the event.
The story matters because it raises questions about aircraft and engine safety checks, and about how airlines and regulators respond when something goes wrong mid-flight. The investigation into the exact cause is still ongoing, and Ryanair has said it will not comment further until it is complete.