A passenger on a flight operated by Ryanair subsidiary Malta Air was partially sucked out of a broken window shortly after take-off from Thessaloniki in Greece on Friday, Reuters and the Associated Press reported, forcing the plane to make an emergency landing.
The aircraft was alleged to fly from Thessaloniki to Memmingen Airport near Munich in Germany but returned to Thessaloniki Friday morning “when a passenger window dislodged inflight,” Ryanair said in an announcement to the British news agency.
“The aircraft landed normally, and passengers returned to the terminal,” Ryanair added.
The 61-year-old passenger suffered neck and shoulder injuries and friction burns, in accordance with a Greek hospital official who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
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Global News reached out to the airline to independently confirm the small print but didn’t receive a response by the point of publication.
Local Greek media reported that a chunk of the plane flew off and broke a window shortly after takeoff on Friday, causing the cabin oxygen masks to drop and sucking one passenger’s head and shoulders out of the window.
Two airport sources with knowledge of the incident reported the identical details to Reuters, it said. The BBC and The Guardian also reported those details. Ryanair told Reuters that it’s unclear what caused the broken window.
Passengers also told Greek media that they heard a loud bang, that oxygen masks dropped and that the plane began descending, the Associated Press said.
“Most individuals had fallen asleep, we had closed our eyes. We heard a sound, I’d describe it like a tire bursting, … but very loud,” a passenger, identified by the AP as Christina, told Thessaloniki radio.
“We knew immediately we lost pressure because we lost altitude. … Screams, shrieks, shouting,” she added
Unverified videos circulating on social media from contained in the plane showed a broken window and oxygen masks hanging from the ceiling.
FlightRadar24 showed a Boeing 737 NG jet en path to Memmingen diverted back to Thessaloniki on Friday morning.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) confirmed that a window broke on Friday’s flight and said it was able to support the Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority (HCAA) and the NTSB within the investigation.
The National Transportation Safety Board, the U.S. federal agency that investigates aviation accidents and other major transportation incidents, said it was notified that the flight returned as a result of “a right engine issue and cabin decompression.”
Certainly one of the Greek airport sources told Reuters that the aircraft remains to be on the bottom in Thessaloniki while investigators look into the incident.
Flight records show that the aircraft climbed past 15,000 feet about six minutes after departure, then immediately descended to about 6,000 feet before returning to Thessaloniki about an hour after takeoff, Flightradar24 said.
— with files from Reuters and the Associated Press
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