Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary said on Monday that initial findings from an investigation into a broken window incident earlier this month suggested “damage caused by foreign objects” and that the problem was due to the age of the plane or maintenance conditions.
“Early indications suggest it looks like a damaged foreign object on the engine on takeoff from Thessaloniki, but we don’t have that, we can’t say for sure,” O’Leary told analysts after Ryanair’s results for the April-June quarter.
O’Leary said the plane was 18 years old and the engine had been fully serviced and overhauled in the past two years.
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Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary said the plane was 18 years old and the engine had been fully serviced and overhauled over the past two years. (Chris J. Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)
He also said a draft report on the incident would be released in less than a month, followed by a more detailed report.
On July 10, a piece of a The Boeing 737 engine broke the plane and crashed into a window shortly after takeoff from Thessaloniki, Greece, en route to Memmingen, Germany, according to video footage and the Federal Aviation Administration.
The plane lost pressure and was forced to make an emergency landing.
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One passenger was partially sucked out of the plane, but his wife and other passengers were able to grab him and bring him back inside. (Reuters/Alexandros Avramidis/File photo / Reuters photos)
A passenger was partially sucked out of the plane during the incident, but his wife and other passengers managed to catch him and bring him back inside.
The 61-year-old passenger was hospitalized after suffering neck and shoulder injuries as well as friction burns.
Flight records show the plane, delivered new to Ryanair in 2008, had exceeded 15,000 feet about six minutes after takeoff before descending to about 6,000 feet. The plane remained at low altitude for about 30 minutes to burn off fuel before returning to Thessaloniki about an hour after departure, according to flight tracking site Flightradar24.
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the incident. (Photo by Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images / Getty Images)
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The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the incident.
If the damage to the aircraft was caused by an external object, it could reduce The responsibilities of Boeing and Ryanair in the incident.
Reuters contributed to this report.