Ryanair passenger partially sucked from cabin after window detaches over North Macedonia

The incident

Flight FR1879, operated by Malta Air for Ryanair, took off from Thessaloniki at 06:12 local time bound for Memmingen, Germany. About six minutes into the climb, passengers heard a loud bang. The cabin lost pressure, oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling, and the Boeing 737-800 began a rapid descent from 4,570 metres to 1,830 metres.

I immediately knew we had lost pressure because the plane descended. There were screams, screeching, shouting. For a moment I thought someone had accidentally opened the emergency door.

A window had detached, and a man seated beside it was forced outward, his head and shoulders protruding through the opening. Passenger Sofia told Radio Thessaloniki that the decompression felt violent and the injured man lost consciousness several times.

Rescue effort

The man's wife, also aboard, grasped his legs for approximately five minutes to stop him from being fully ejected. Hospital official Michalis Giannakos, president of the Panhellenic Federation of Public Hospital Workers, said the woman held on until other passengers could drag her husband back into the cabin. The passenger had kept his seatbelt fastened, which prevented a complete pull-out.

His wife held him by the legs for about five minutes to stop him from being pulled out.

The 61-year-old Serbian national suffered friction burns on his neck and shoulders and a neck injury. He was taken to University Hospital Thessaloniki and is not in a life-threatening condition. A pregnant passenger was examined as a precaution and released.

Return and response

The pilots descended below 3,000 metres, declared an emergency, and circled to burn fuel. The aircraft touched down safely at Thessaloniki about 60 minutes after departure. Ryanair issued a statement confirming the return was due to a passenger window detaching in flight, adding that the aircraft landed normally and passengers returned to the terminal.

A replacement aircraft later flew the remaining passengers to Memmingen. Some, however, chose not to board. Passenger Sabrina told Bild she and her mother booked a Lufthansa flight two days later instead, saying they needed time to recover. After the landing, the captain, who had remained composed throughout the emergency, broke down in tears on the tarmac, according to Sabrina.

Unconfirmed cause

Several passengers and local media reports claim a piece of debris from one of the Boeing 737-800's engines struck and broke the window. Ryanair has not commented on that account, and neither Boeing nor the airline have verified the source of the damage. The episode recalls a 2018 Southwest Airlines flight where an engine failure sent debris through a cabin window, partially pulling out a passenger who later died. French and Greek aviation authorities are expected to investigate the 10 July event.