Passenger sucked out after window detaches mid-air, wife holds on to his legs: reports

Reportedly, a piece of the engine broke off and struck the window causing it to shatter. Photo by Jevgenij Kulikov /Getty Images

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A window detaching mid-flight led to a passenger being partly sucked out of the cabin on a Ryanair flight to Germany.

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His wife is said to have been holding on to his legs, Daily Star reports. The passenger was on a flight from Greece to Germany, France 24 reports.

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“His wife held him down for five minutes so he wouldn’t get out,” news outlet Enikos reports Michalis Giannakos, the president of Panhellenic Federation of Public Hospital Employees in Greece, as saying. “With the help of many passengers, they managed to pull him into the cabin.”

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The incident occurred after most of the passengers had fallen asleep, according to a witness. “There was a noise, like a tyre bursting,” the witness told Radio Thessaloniki. “We immediately realized there had been a decompression. There were screams … for a moment, I thought someone had accidentally opened the emergency door. The masks dropped and there was a strong smell,” the woman said.

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It was at this moment, the woman said, that the head and shoulders of the passenger were outside the window. “Fortunately, he hadn’t taken off his seat belt,” she told Radio Thessaloniki.

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The man, reported to be a 61-year-old by CNN Greece, was hospitalized after the incident with friction burns. Otherwise, the outlet reports, he was said to be in good condition.

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The airlines confirmed the incident in an email to New York Post. The outlet reports that a piece of the engine broke off and struck the window, causing it to shatter.

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The incident occurred after most of the passengers had fallen asleep, according to a witness. “There was a noise, like a tyre bursting.” Photo by PAU BARRENA /AFP via Getty Images

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“A Ryanair flight from Thessaloniki to Memmingen on Friday morning (10 July) returned to Thessaloniki shortly after take-off when a passenger window dislodged inflight,” an airline spokesperson told the news outlet. “The aircraft landed normally and passengers returned to the terminal. One passenger requested and received medical assistance on the ground in Thessaloniki.”

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