What should have been a routine European flight turned into every traveller’s worst nightmare when a passenger was partially sucked out of a shattered aircraft window mid-air, leaving his wife clinging to his legs to stop him disappearing into the sky.
The terrifying incident unfolded aboard a Ryanair flight travelling from Thessaloniki in Greece to Memmingen in Germany when passengers heard a deafening bang shortly after take-off. Moments later, oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling as the cabin rapidly depressurised.
Sixty-one-year-old Serbian passenger Ljubiša Karović, who was seated beside the window, was suddenly lifted from his seat when the window shattered, reportedly after debris from an engine failure struck the aircraft’s fuselage. Witnesses said his head and shoulders were pulled outside the Boeing 737 as freezing air roared through the cabin at hundreds of kilometres per hour.
His wife, Svetlana Grković, reacted instantly. “If we die, we die together,” she later recalled thinking as she grabbed hold of her husband’s legs and refused to let go.
For almost two minutes she and other passengers fought to pull him back into the cabin while the aircraft made an emergency descent. Karović reportedly lost consciousness several times during the ordeal as fellow travellers battled the powerful airflow rushing through the broken window.
One passenger described scenes of panic as people screamed and scrambled for safety while others desperately tried to block the hole with luggage. One suitcase was reportedly sucked out before a larger bag helped reduce the force of the air blasting into the cabin.
The aircraft eventually turned back and landed safely in Thessaloniki, where emergency crews rushed Karović to hospital with burns, head injuries and severe trauma to one of his hands. Despite the horrific nature of the incident, doctors say his injuries are not believed to be life-threatening.
Aviation authorities from Greece, North Macedonia and Europe have launched investigations into what caused the window to fail, while reports suggest engine debris may have triggered the chain of events. Boeing and international safety investigators are assisting with the inquiry.
For many travellers of a certain age, the incident inevitably recalls the famous 1990 case of a British Airways captain who was partially sucked from his cockpit window and survived only because crew members physically held onto him until the aircraft landed safely.
This time, it was a wife’s grip – and the quick actions of strangers – that made the difference between a terrifying story and a tragedy.
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