The dramatic moments were described by the wife of a Serbian man who narrowly escaped death when part of his body was left hanging outside the cabin of a Ryanair flight.

The incident occurred on the morning of Friday, 10 July, aboard Ryanair flight FR1879, a Boeing 737-800 travelling from Thessaloniki to Memmingen in southern Germany. According to eyewitnesses, a loud bang was heard shortly after take-off when debris from a damaged engine struck a cabin window next to which 61-year-old Ljubisa Karovic, from Serbia, was sitting.

The impact shattered the window and triggered a rapid loss of cabin pressure, pulling the passenger towards the opening with his head and shoulders forced outside the fuselage. Flight-tracking data showed the aircraft began descending back towards Thessaloniki around 10 minutes after departure, dropping to roughly 16,000 feet.

“I grabbed him by the legs”

Karovic’s wife, Svetlana Grkovic, who was seated beside him, reacted immediately.

“It was as if a piece of the engine had broken off and hit the window next to where Ljubisa was sitting. I reacted immediately and grabbed him by the legs. I thought: if we’re going to die, we’ll die together. It was horrific,” Grkovic told Serbian broadcaster Nova.

She held onto her husband for about five minutes until other passengers rushed over and managed to pull him back into the cabin, by which point the oxygen masks had already dropped.

Grkovic recalled that a man and a woman came to help her almost immediately. “They came to help me. I remember a man and a woman. He helped us a great deal, both me and Ljubisa,” she said, adding that she hopes to meet the pair again to thank them in person.

Hospitalised with burns and in shock

Karovic remains in hospital. According to his wife, he sustained a serious arm injury and friction burns and is in a state of severe shock. He has been unable to speak because of his injuries, having lost consciousness several times during the incident, and remembers very little of what happened.

Other passengers described chaotic scenes on board. Some initially believed the plane was crashing, while others rushed to help the injured man. “He had blood on his head and kept passing out. We were all wearing oxygen masks and didn’t know if we’d make it,” one passenger said.

Another witness said Karovic survived because he had kept his seatbelt fastened. “Fortunately, he hadn’t taken it off. His wife held onto his legs for five whole minutes until the other passengers arrived to pull him inside,” they said.

The Boeing 737-800 returned to Thessaloniki, where it made an emergency landing without further incident.

Ryanair said in a statement that the flight returned to Thessaloniki airport shortly after take-off when a passenger window “dislodged in-flight”. The airline said one passenger received medical attention after landing, and that a replacement aircraft was arranged to fly the remaining passengers on to Memmingen.

A pregnant passenger was also taken to hospital as a precaution but was found to be in good health and has since been discharged.