{"id":539467,"date":"2026-07-23T00:17:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T00:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/539467\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T00:17:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T00:17:13","slug":"lucky-ryanair-passenger-nearly-sucked-out-of-plane-recounts-ordeal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/539467\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Lucky’: Ryanair passenger nearly sucked out of plane recounts ordeal"},"content":{"rendered":"

A passenger who was partially sucked out of the plane during a Ryanair flight earlier this month<\/a> says he is “lucky” as he recounts the ordeal for the first time. <\/p>\n

The incident happened on July 10 on a morning flight from the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki to Memmingen, near Munich. The flight was operated by Malta Air, a subsidiary of Ryanair, Europe\u2019s largest budget carrier.<\/p>\n

Ljubisa Karovi\u0107, 61, suffered neck and shoulder injuries, and friction burns, according to a Greek hospital official when a window dislodged and he was partially sucked out of the plane due to cabin decompression. <\/p>\n

His wife Svetlana Grkovi\u0107 desperately held onto her husband’s legs, reportedly telling him “if we die, we die together”, according to the Guardian. <\/p>\n

New photos show bruising across his shoulder and chest, with burns and bruises on his right arm, along his armpit and chest. <\/p>\n

His Greek lawyer, Vasilis Tsiaras, said Karovi\u0107 was still recovering from both his physical injuries and the psychological trauma of the ordeal, telling the Guardian he was “alive by mistake”. <\/p>\n

In an interview with The Guardian, the Serbian entrepreneur had his head supported by a neck brace as he recalled the explosion and the noise. <\/p>\n

“It\u2019s the noise before the chaos, the noise that is always there when I close my eyes to sleep,” he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI am lucky,” he said. <\/p>\n

“I don\u2019t remember much and my head and neck still hurt but I am still alive. It could have been the seatbelt, the fact that I was still strapped in. But maybe it is fate. I believe in God and I thank him every day,” he told the Guardian. <\/p>\n

A series of short videos recorded from inside the plane showed passengers wearing oxygen masks after the cabin lost pressure. <\/p>\n

Another appeared to show the blown-out window. <\/p>\n

The incident remained under investigation.<\/a> <\/p>\n

The morning’s headlines in 90 seconds, including Stuart Nash quits amid sexism storm, and Prince George turns 13. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A passenger who was partially sucked out of the plane during a Ryanair flight earlier this month says…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":539468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[15656,138,111,139,64,69,112,1745],"class_list":["post-539467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-air-travel","tag-business","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-north-america","tag-nz","tag-transport","tag-uk-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/539468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}