During a flight on a Ryanair plane, a passenger narrowly escaped being pulled out of the aircraft after an apparent explosion occurred mid-flight. Ljubisa Karović, a 61-year-old entrepreneur from Serbia, was resting on flight FR1879 from Greece to Germany when the sound of a window breaking abruptly woke him up. Seated in 11F, he experienced objects flying past him and out of the shattered window while fellow passengers struggled to keep him inside.
As a result of the incident, Ljubisa sustained burns and bruises on his right arm extending from his armpit to his chest. Despite wearing a neck brace due to his injuries, he bravely recounted the terrifying ordeal he endured on the flight.
“The explosion is etched in my memory,” Ljubisa shared with The Guardian. “It’s that deafening sound before chaos ensues, a sound that continues to haunt me whenever I try to sleep.”
He was partially sucked out of the window before being pulled back in, with reports indicating he lost consciousness multiple times during the terrifying event. Reflecting on his survival outside Thessaloniki, Greece, Ljubisa expressed gratitude for being alive despite the ongoing pain he endures.
Ljubisa was quickly taken to a hospital upon landing, where his Greek lawyer, Vasilis Tsiaras, described his survival as miraculous. Tsiaras recounted how Ljubisa teetered between life and death, being propelled out of the window and losing consciousness at high altitude before being rescued back into the plane.
His wife, Svetlana Grković, who was seated a few rows behind him, vividly remembered the deployment of oxygen masks and the collective effort of passengers to secure her husband in his seat. She mentioned that a fellow passenger, potentially of Albanian descent, used various items like a bag and a suitcase to seal the breached window.
Ryanair commended its cabin crew for their exceptional handling of the situation, with the company’s CEO, Michael O’Leary, detailing an initial investigation into the incident. O’Leary suggested that the incident, which occurred on a Ryanair subsidiary Malta Air-operated 18-year-old Boeing 737 aircraft between Greece and Germany, may have been caused by foreign object damage to the engine during takeoff in Thessaloniki. He emphasized that the plane’s engine had undergone thorough servicing and maintenance within the last two years.