![\"David](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1768806489_3_64ce109be56ceea0d7f4eb381757b1cddf9ee9b3.png\")
Save<\/p>\nSave<\/p>\n
You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n
Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n AAA<\/p>\n London: A woman who saved her husband from being sucked out of an aircraft window has revealed she thought they would die together as she held on to his legs.<\/p>\n Svetlana Grkovi\u0107 and her husband Ljubi\u0161a Karovi\u0107 were on a Ryanair flight from Thessaloniki in Greece to Memmingen in Germany on Friday when the window next to them shattered<\/a> while they were dozing in their seats.<\/p>\n In her first public account of the emergency, Grkovi\u0107 said her husband was sucked so far out of the window that his head and shoulders were outside the aircraft, as she and other passengers tried to drag him back in. The flight made an emergency landing at Thessaloniki, where it first departed.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was as if a part of the engine broke off and hit the window where my husband Ljubi\u0161a was sitting. Luckily, he was strapped in,\u201d she told Serbian news outlet Nova<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cAs the window broke, decompression occurred in the cabin. The pressure pulled Ljubi\u0161a, luckily he was strapped in, but half of his body was sticking out of the plane. I immediately reacted and grabbed his legs.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought: \u2018If we die, we die together\u2019. It was horrible.\u201d<\/p>\n The European Union Aviation Safety Agency is investigating the incident.<\/p>\n Ryanair has confirmed the incident unfolded on a Boeing 737 NG operated by its Malta Air subsidiary. The airline said in a statement that a \u201cpassenger window dislodged in flight\u201d but has not named a reason for the potential disaster. \u201cThe aircraft landed normally, and the passengers returned to the terminal,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n Related Article Grkovi\u0107 said some passengers panicked when the air decompressed and oxygen masks were released.<\/p>\n \u201cSome people came to my aid, I remembered one man and one woman. That man helped me a lot, me and Ljubi\u0161a,\u201d she told Nova.<\/p>\n \u201cWe held Ljubi\u0161a\u2019s legs together, while the plane was returning to the airport in Thessaloniki. I think he was Albanian, thank you very much. I didn\u2019t remember his name, I don\u2019t even know if he told me. I would like to meet him, to thank him personally again.\u201d<\/p>\n Her husband was taken to hospital by ambulance when the aircraft landed.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cI know that Ljubi\u0161a lost consciousness several times,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s important to me that he\u2019s alive. He\u2019s seriously injured and in shock. His hand is particularly badly injured, and he\u2019s got burns. He\u2019s not able to communicate; he doesn\u2019t remember the whole event.\u201d<\/p>\n Local media in Greece reported that a piece of engine broke off and smashed a window early in the flight, causing the cabin to decompress. The two airport sources with knowledge of the incident relayed the same details to Reuters.<\/p>\n A video posted on social media appeared to show an uncontained engine failure on the damaged Boeing 737, with fan blades missing. Such a failure occurs when internal components like fan blades shatter and breach the casing, sending debris flying.<\/p>\n Related Article Reuters reported a similar incident in 2018<\/a> on another Boeing 737 NG when a fan blade in the engine of a \u200bSouthwest Airlines aircraft in the US caused a broken window that partially sucked out a passenger, who died from the injuries.<\/p>\n The US National Transportation Safety Board responded to the accident by telling Boeing to redesign the fan cowl structure on the 737 NG aircraft, the model before the 737-MAX.<\/p>\n Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what\u2019s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n Save<\/p>\n You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n![\"Ljubi\u0161a](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/54472f57bfd12cf089c56950511aa9192a78ffb6d5299db8dae59791e9754341.jpeg\")
Ljubi\u0161a Karovi\u0107 was saved from being sucked out of the Ryanair plane by his wife, Svetlana Grkovi\u0107.Facebook\/Karovic Ljubisa<\/p>\n![\"Ryanair](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784035932_724_2405215279627fde35a821fb107fb1bb5ae49ab1.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/2405215279627fde35a821fb107fb1bb5ae49ab1.jpeg\")
A Ryanair Boeing 737-800.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/4bf19efc771db09a5e548d06c7127d9c52dca360.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"David](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/64ce109be56ceea0d7f4eb381757b1cddf9ee9b3.png\")
David Crowe<\/a> is Europe correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":799768,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99],"class_list":["post-799767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=799767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799767\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/799768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=799767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=799767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=799767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}