On 10 July, a Ryanair flight from Thessaloniki, Greece, to Memmingen, Germany, experienced a sudden cabin decompression shortly after takeoff when a passenger window shattered. A 61-year-old Serbian man, Ljubisa Karović, who was seated beside the window, was pulled head and shoulders outside the aircraft. His wife, Svetlana Grković, grabbed his legs and, with the help of two other passengers, held him for approximately two minutes until he could be pulled back inside. The aircraft, a Boeing 737-800 operated by Ryanair subsidiary Malta Air, returned to Thessaloniki and landed without further incident.

Karović was transported to a hospital in Thessaloniki, where he remains under care. According to his wife, speaking to Serbian and Greek media, he suffered a severely injured hand, friction burns, and is in a state of shock. He is unable to communicate and has no recollection of the event. She told the Serbian outlet Nova that he lost consciousness several times while partially outside the aircraft. Medical sources in Greece have not publicly detailed his condition, but his wife said he is “seriously injured” and that the most important thing is that he is alive. She also described her own psychological distress, telling Greek state broadcaster ERT that she is in a “very bad psychological state” and feared the plane would crash.

The cause of the window failure remains unconfirmed. Passengers reported hearing a loud bang, and some described what they believed was an engine explosion. A technical consultant hired by the family told media that a piece of the right engine detached and struck the window, leading to the decompression. This account has not been verified by investigators. Ryanair, in a statement, said only that a “passenger window dislodged in flight” and that the aircraft landed normally. The Hellenic Air Safety Investigation Authority is leading the inquiry, with participation from the US Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board because the aircraft is of American manufacture. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency is also involved. The incident occurred in airspace over North Macedonia.

The event draws comparisons to a 2018 accident involving a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737, in which an uncontained engine failure shattered a window and a passenger was partially ejected and died. That incident prompted US regulators to order design changes to the engine fan cowl on the 737 NG series, the model involved in the Ryanair event. The aircraft in Friday’s incident was approximately 18 years old. No official findings have been released, and the investigation is ongoing. The remaining passengers were transferred to a replacement aircraft and continued to Germany.