The Ryanair passenger who was partially extracted from a Boeing 737 when a window was smashed during a robbery earlier this month, he recounted his horrific experience, saying he was lucky to be alive.
Ljubisa Karović, 61, was on a Ryanair flight operated by Malta Air from Thessaloniki, Greece, en route to Memmingen, Germany, on July 10, when debris believed to have come from the plane’s damaged engine struck and shattered a window shortly after departure.
THE lost airplane cabin pressure and was forced to urgently return to Thessaloniki. Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary said on Monday that preliminary findings suggested the engine may have suffered “foreign object damage”, although the cause remains under investigation.
Karović, a Serbian entrepreneur, told the Guardian that it is the moments before the “chaos, the catastrophe” that keep him up at night.
RYANAIR CEO SAYS FOREIGN OBJECT MAY HAVE CAUSED WINDOW INCIDENT IN GREECE
Ljubisa Karović, 61, was on a Ryanair flight operated by Malta Air from Thessaloniki, Greece, en route to Memmingen, Germany, when debris believed to have come from the plane’s damaged engine struck and shattered a window. (Reuters/Alexandros Avramidis/File photo / Reuters photos)
“The explosion is what I remember,” Karović told the media outlet. “It’s the noise before the chaos, the noise that’s still there when I close my eyes to sleep.”
“They told me that I fainted twice inside the plane and that my face was briefly swollen and distorted from the pressure, the air current,” he continued.
Karović managed to survive the near-death experience after his wife and other passengers grabbed him and brought him back inside the plane.
His wife, Svetlana, was seated three rows back when she rushed to grab her husband, who she said had been “half in and out of the plane” for about two minutes.
“No cabin crew helped. It was the passengers,” she said. “One man, I think it was an Albanian, was incredible. He did everything he could to get him in and then tried to block the window, first with a bag which was immediately sucked in, then with a suitcase, which worked. We are eternally grateful to him for that.”
Ryanair disputed the suggestion that the crew did not react appropriately. The airline told the Guardian that during the depressurization and rapid descent, all passengers and crew had to remain seated and put on oxygen masks, adding that the crew looked after Karović and arranged medical assistance once the plane had descended to a safe altitude. Investigators have not yet publicly determined whether all procedures required by the crew were followed.
A broken window on the Ryanair plane following an emergency landing in Thessaloniki, Greece, July 10, 2026. (Despoina Papapavlou via REUTERS/Reuters Photos)
Karović was hospitalized after suffering neck and shoulder injuries as well as friction burns. Doctors told Karović that his recovery would be slow and that he would have to wear a neck brace for the next six weeks, after which a decision would be made on whether surgery was necessary.
“I’m lucky,” Karović said. “I don’t remember much and my head and neck still hurt, but I’m still alive.”
Karović said his seat belt may have prevented him from being pulled completely out of the window, although he did not rule out other factors.
“It could have been due to the seat belt, the fact that I was still strapped in,” Karović said. “But maybe it’s fate.”
“I believe in God and I thank him every day,” he added.
Karović’s lawyer Vasilis Tsiaras said the man was “alive by mistake”.
WHY A EXPLODED PLANE WINDOW almost sucked a passenger out at 16,000 feet
The interior of the Ryanair plane after an emergency landing in Thessaloniki, Greece, July 10, 2026. (Despoina Papapavlou via REUTERS/Reuters Photos)
“Ljubisa went in and out of death,” Tsiaras said. “When the cabin lost pressure, he was thrown out of the window from the chest up and immediately lost consciousness. At 15,000 feet, he found himself with his head and right arm outside the plane as it traveled at speeds of more than 600 km/h. [373 mph]. Imagine that!”
“He looked at death, this other world, and he came back,” added the lawyer.
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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 U.S. National Transportation Safety Board is leading the investigation after Greece’s Hellenic Air and Rail Safety Investigation Authority delegated the investigation to the U.S. agency. Greek investigators are also participating.