Ryanair is disputing eyewitness accounts that a passenger was partially sucked out of a shattered window during a July 10 flight from Greece to Germany.
Serbian businessman Ljubisa Karović, 61, was seriously injured when a window at seat 11F was destroyed mid-flight, causing rapid decompression of the pressurized cabin. His wife, Svetlana Grković, and other passengers pulled him back into the aircraft after he was rendered unconscious, according to a flight attendant’s account to NTSB investigators. The crew member described seeing Karović “partially lodged” in the damaged window as others rushed to help, with oxygen masks deployed and passengers standing to call for assistance.
Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary directly challenged that version during the airline’s annual general meeting in Dublin earlier this week. “He wasn’t partially out the window,” O’Leary told reporters, per the Guardian. “Part of his face didn’t get out the window.”
The CEO continued to press his case with striking specificity. “We don’t think any part of his body got out the window, but he was certainly sucked in very dramatic circumstances towards the window,” he said. O’Leary noted that Karović had been “belted to the seat” and added: “We will be certainly at the end of the process disputing that he or any part of his anatomy will bend out the window.”
O’Leary insisted he was “not trying to downplay it” and confirmed the airline would “have to await the outcome of the NTSB report.”
Experts have identified the cause as a “fan-blade-out” failure, in which one of the large rotating fan blades at the front of the engine fractured. Pieces of the blade escaped the engine area and struck the fuselage, with one impact destroying the passenger window.
Karović sustained serious injuries including neck and shoulder trauma and friction burns. In a July interview, he described the lasting trauma of the explosion. “It’s the noise before the chaos, the noise that is always there when I close my eyes to sleep,” he said. “I am lucky. I don’t remember much and my head and neck still hurt but I am still alive.”
He credited his survival to remaining strapped in. “It could have been the seatbelt, the fact that I was still strapped in,” Karović said. “But maybe it is fate. I believe in God and I thank him every day.”
The discrepancy between O’Leary’s account and the flight attendant’s reported testimony to NTSB investigators sets up a conflict that the safety board’s forthcoming report will have to resolve. The crew member had stated she saw Karović “partially lodged” in the window as others pulled him back, a description that initial reports amplified into claims he had been sucked out from the chest upwards.
Ryanair has not provided an alternative explanation for how Karović sustained his injuries if no part of his body exited the aircraft. The airline said it would await the NTSB findings before making further determinations.