Ryanair passenger nearly sucked from window after engine debris shatters cabin
Flight turns back after engine debris breaks window, leaving one passenger injured
Passengers on a Ryanair flight from Greece to Germany say they woke to what sounded like a tyre bursting.
Seconds later, oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling as the aircraft rapidly lost cabin pressure.
One passenger was reportedly pulled towards a window that had detached during the flight. Fellow travellers managed to pull him back into his seat before the Boeing 737 returned safely to Thessaloniki, according to witnesses and officials.
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The passenger, a Serbian tourist, was taken to hospital with friction burns and was otherwise in good condition, authorities said.
"Most of us had fallen asleep. There was a noise, like a tyre bursting," one passenger told Radio Thessaloniki.
"We immediately realised there had been a decompression. There were screams ... for a moment I thought someone had accidentally opened the emergency door."
She said oxygen masks deployed as "there was a strong smell," adding: "The head and shoulders of one passenger were outside the window. Fortunately, he hadn't taken off his seat belt."
According to Greek media, the incident happened while the aircraft was flying over North Macedonia. Early reports suggest debris from one of the engines struck the fuselage, damaging the passenger window, although aviation authorities have not yet confirmed the cause.
Ryanair said the flight returned to Thessaloniki "shortly after takeoff when a passenger window detached during the flight."
"The aircraft landed normally and the passengers returned to the terminal," the airline said, adding that a replacement aircraft was arranged to fly the remaining passengers to Memmingen.
The incident is now under investigation.
While cabin depressurisation events are rare, they are treated as serious emergencies. In 2018, a passenger died after engine debris shattered a window on a Southwest Airlines flight in the United States, while the 1990 British Airways Flight 5390 accident, in which a cockpit windscreen detached during flight, prompted major changes to aircraft maintenance procedures.
Investigators are examining whether the Ryanair aircraft was damaged by engine debris or another mechanical failure as they work to establish exactly what happened shortly after take-off.
