Ljubisa Karović, 61, from Serbia, was sleeping on Ryanair flight FR1879 from Greece to Germany when he was woken by the deafening sound of a window shattering. He watched as objects flew through the air and out the window as other passengers desperately tried to hold him in place. He was left with burns and bruises on his right arm, stretching from his armpit to his chest.
Passenger's Account of the Incident
Now, while wearing a neck brace to support his head, Ljubisa has shared his account of what happened on the flight. "The explosion is what I remember," the entrepreneur told The Guardian. "Its the noise before the chaos, the noise that is always there when I close my eyes to sleep." He was sucked part-way out of the window before being pulled back in. His lawyer says he fainted between two or three times during the ordeal.
Speaking from a villa outside the Greek coastal city of Thessaloniki, he added: "I am lucky. I don’t remember much and my head and neck still hurt but I am still alive. It could have been the seatbelt, the fact that I was still strapped in. But maybe it is fate. I believe in God and I thank him every day."
Wife and Fellow Passengers React
Ljubisa's wife Svetlana Grković, who was seated three rows behind him, recalled the moment oxygen masks came down and how passengers held her husband in place. She said another passenger, possibly an Albanian, used a bag, then a suitcase to plug the hole.
Ljubisa was immediately taken to hospital once the plane landed, but he is still living with pain. His Greek lawyer Vasilis Tsiaras said his survival was nothing short of a miracle. "Ljubisa dipped in and out of death," he said. "When the cabin lost pressure he was hurled out of the window from his chest up and immediately lost consciousness. He was on that plane heading to Germany to celebrate his brother’s birthday. Instead, at 15,000ft he ended up with his head and right arm outside the aircraft as it moved at a speed of more than 600km/h. Imagine that. He looked at death, that other world, and came back."
Ryanair's Response
Ryanair praised its cabin crew, saying they did a "phenomenal job" during the incident. Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary said an initial investigation into the incident on 10 July between Greece and Germany suggests "it looks like a foreign object damage to the engine on takeoff at Thessaloniki but ... we can't say that definitively." He insisted the engine on the 18-year-old Boeing 737 plane had been fully serviced and overhauled in the past two years. The plane was operated by Ryanair's subsidiary Malta Air.
