Ryanair to Dispute Claims Passenger Was Sucked Out of Plane Window

Ryanair has announced it will dispute claims that a passenger was partially sucked out of a plane window during a flight from Greece to Germany in July. The incident left 61 year old Serbian businessman Ljubisa Karovic severely injured after the window beside him shattered shortly after takeoff. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in the US is leading the investigation into the accident, with Boeing, GE, and Ryanair also involved.

Karovic's lawyer and his wife, Svetlana Grkovic, claim that the sudden depressurization sucked the man's head and right arm through the window. Grkovic stated that her husband was half in and out of the plane for at least two minutes and had to be pulled back in by her and another passenger. Karovic told The Guardian that he believes his seatbelt kept him inside the aircraft while he blacked out.

Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary stated during the airline's annual general meeting in Dublin that while Karovic was sucked towards the window in dramatic circumstances, no part of his anatomy actually exited the aircraft. O'Leary emphasized that the passenger was belted into his seat and noted that the airline is awaiting the final NTSB report.

During the same meeting, O'Leary also criticized the National Air Traffic Services (Nats) regarding a separate technical failure that caused mass flight cancellations in the UK. O'Leary accused Nats leader Martin Rolfe of lying about the cause of the outage, which Nats described as a rare flight processing system issue. Additionally, The Guardian reported that approximately one third of shareholders voted against O'Leary's latest pay deal, though the package was ultimately approved.