Mid-Air Emergency on Ryanair Flight from Greece to Germany

A mid-air emergency on a Ryanair flight from Greece to Germany left one man with his head and shoulders outside a shattered window before fellow passengers dragged him back to safety, authorities and witnesses said Friday.

The drama unfolded shortly after takeoff from Thessaloniki, on a flight bound for Memmingen in southern Germany. The man, a tourist from Serbia, escaped with friction burns and was in hospital but otherwise in good condition, officials confirmed.

Most people on board had been dozing when the calm broke.

"There was a noise, like a tire bursting," a passenger told Radio Thessaloniki, as reported by AFP. In an instant, the cabin changed. Pressure dropped. Oxygen masks fell. Screams cut through the aisle.

"We immediately realised there had been a decompression," the woman said. For a brief, terrifying moment, she thought someone had opened an emergency door. Instead, a window had given way.

The force of the decompression dragged the Serbian passenger toward the opening. His head and shoulders ended up outside the aircraft, saved only by the fact he was still strapped into his seat. Other passengers nearby grabbed him and hauled him back inside, the witness said.

Greek media reported that the incident happened while the plane was flying over North Macedonia. Local reports said debris from one of the aircraft’s engines broke off and smashed into the window, causing it to fail.

Ryanair confirmed the emergency in a statement, saying the flight "returned to Thessaloniki shortly after takeoff when a passenger window detached during the flight. The aircraft landed normally and the passengers returned to the terminal."

The airline said a replacement aircraft was arranged to carry the remaining passengers on to Memmingen.

As investigators work to establish how an engine fragment could break a window and trigger such a dangerous decompression, the passengers who pulled the man back into the cabin will know exactly how close this flight came to a very different ending.