{"id":549590,"date":"2026-07-14T17:52:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T17:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/549590\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T17:52:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T17:52:09","slug":"half-of-his-body-was-sticking-out-of-the-plane-wife-of-ryanair-passenger-nearly-sucked-out-window-speaks-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/549590\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Half of his body was sticking out of the plane’: Wife of Ryanair passenger nearly sucked out window speaks out"},"content":{"rendered":"

A woman who saved her husband from being completely sucked out<\/a> of a Ryanair<\/a> plane mid-flight has said she thought as she held on to his legs: \u201cIf we die, we die together.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ljubisa Karovic was sucked out headfirst on the flight on Friday after an engine failure resulted in parts smashing the acrylic window.<\/p>\n

\u201cHalf of his body was sticking out of the plane,\u201d his wife, Svetlana Grkovic, told Serbian outlet Nova.<\/p>\n

\u201cI immediately reacted and grabbed his legs,\u201d she said, adding that he was \u201coutside up to his chest\u201d for two minutes.<\/p>\n

\"AA broken window of the Ryanair aircraft. Picture: Despoina Papapavlou\/Reuters<\/p>\n

Grkovic said that with the help of two passengers she was able to pull her husband, who lost consciousness three times, back inside the aircraft.<\/p>\n

She said that many people fled their seats to other parts of the plane for safety as the cabin decompressed.<\/p>\n

The couple were on the flight, operated by the Ryanair subsidiary Malta Air, from Thessaloniki in Greece to Memmingen in Germany, for about 10 minutes when, according to tracking data, it suddenly dropped 2,700m.<\/p>\n

Passengers told local media that Karovic had kept his seatbelt on and helped those on board keep hold of him while his upper torso was in the plane\u2019s slipstream outside.<\/p>\n

The 61-year-old is still in hospital in Greece and remains \u201cseriously injured and in shock\u201d, Grkovic said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important to me that he\u2019s alive,\u201d she said. \u201cHis hand is particularly badly injured, and he\u2019s got burns. He\u2019s not able to communicate, he doesn\u2019t remember the whole event.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people came to my aid, I remember one man and one woman,\u201d she added. \u201cThat man helped me a lot, Ljubisa and me. 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

\"SheShe said that many people fled their seats to other parts of the plane for safety as the cabin decompressed. Picture: Despoina Papapavlou\/Reuters<\/p>\n

Images and videos show that the shattered window caused oxygen masks to drop from the ceiling as the cabin became depressurised.<\/p>\n

One passenger told Radio Thessaloniki that those on board \u201cthought the plane was going down\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe decompression was extreme,\u201d she said. \u201cIt felt like we couldn\u2019t breathe. The man who was injured was bleeding and then lost consciousness several times, most likely because of the lack of oxygen and the shock.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Another passenger told the radio station that there were screams and \u201cfor a moment I thought someone had accidentally opened the emergency door\u201d.<\/p>\n

Thessaloniki airport\u2019s operator, Fraport Greece, said the incident was \u201ccurrently under investigation by the Hellenic Air and Rail Safety Investigation Authority\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"SvetlanaSvetlana Grkovic said that with the help of two passengers she was able to pull her husband, who lost consciousness three times, back inside the aircraft. Picture: Despoina Papapavlou\/Reuters<\/p>\n

Ryanair said in a statement after the incident that the flight \u201creturned to Thessaloniki shortly after takeoff when a passenger window dislodged in flight\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe aircraft landed normally and passengers returned to the terminal,\u201d the airline added.<\/p>\n

Ryanair sourced a replacement aircraft and other passengers on the flight were able to complete the trip to Memmingen the same day.<\/p>\n

\n Guardian\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A woman who saved her husband from being completely sucked out of a Ryanair plane mid-flight has said…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549591,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[5658,72,61,60,1899],"class_list":["post-549590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-irish-examiner-instagram","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-ryanair"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}