Ryanair jet’s window was broken by engine fragments before passenger sucked out

Engine fragments were to blame for a broken window on a Ryanair plane that led to a passenger being partially sucked out of an aircraft during a flight in July, U.S. investigators said Thursday.

A preliminary report by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) found that an engine blade on Ryanair flight 1879 from Greece on July 10 failed and broke away shortly after takeoff, causing fragments to breach the fuselage, including a window, and the cabin to depressurize.

Ljubisa Karović, 61, a passenger from Serbia who was sitting by the window in seat 11F, had his torso sucked out of the broken window in the incident.

He was saved from being completely sucked out of the plane by his wife and another passenger who grabbed onto him. The man suffered neck and shoulder injuries as well as friction burns.

The accident happened after the flight departed the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki. Investigators found bird remains inside the engine, suggesting the plane may have struck birds during takeoff, though they haven’t determined what caused the fan blade to break loose.

Crew were alerted to engine vibrations at an altitude of 16,000 feet, the investigation found, causing them to reduce engine power and attempt to troubleshoot the issue. Vibrations reduced, and the flight continued to climb on autopilot.

Vibrations then increased significantly, triggering an altitude warning, prompting the crew to declare an emergency and begin an immediate descent.

Cabin crew told investigators they heard a loud bang and noticed smoke or fog fill the cabin before oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling.

After being pulled back into the aircraft, Karović was moved to row 12 and attended to by a passenger who was a doctor for the rest of the flight.

Other passengers obtained a metal box from flight attendants to plug the broken window.

The aircraft landed normally at its original departure destination, and passengers returned to the terminal.

Maintenance records show the fan blades in the right engine had undergone ultrasonic inspections in May 2026 and November 2025, with no damage found.

But flight crews had reported four suspected bird strikes to the same engine over the previous year, according to the NTSB.

The wife of the injured passenger told Greek and Serbian media in the days after the incident that half of her husband’s body was hanging out of the aircraft for close to two minutes, describing the situation as “chaos.”