Ljubisa Karović, a 61-year-old Serbian entrepreneur, has described the terrifying moment he was nearly sucked out of a Ryanair aircraft window mid-flight after the window shattered, leaving his head and right arm outside the plane as it travelled at more than 600km/h at 15,000ft. The incident, which happened on flight FR1879 from Greece to Germany, is remarkable both for the danger it posed and for the fact that Karović is believed to be the only person to have survived being partially ejected from an aircraft in this way, with the cause still under investigation.

Karović, who was strapped into his window seat, 11F, was roused by an explosive noise before losing consciousness as cabin pressure dropped. Fellow passengers, rather than cabin crew, intervened to save him, with one man using a bag and then a suitcase to block the shattered window after Karović's wife and others struggled to hold him in place for what is thought to have been one-and-a-half to two minutes. He suffered burns, bruising and ongoing head and neck pain, and was discharged from hospital roughly 100 hours before speaking to the Guardian, while Ryanair has defended its cabin crew's handling of the emergency.