FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
Moments of absolute terror were experienced on a Ryanair flight from Thessaloniki to Memmingen, Germany, when a passenger was almost sucked out of the plane after a window broke off during the flight.
According to passenger testimonies, a 61-year-old Serbian citizen ended up with his head and shoulders outside the fuselage, while his wife and other passengers held him tightly until they managed to pull him back inside the cabin.
Panic a few minutes after takeoff
The flight had departed from Thessaloniki on Friday morning, bound for southern Germany. According to flight tracking data, about ten minutes after takeoff, the Boeing suddenly lost about 9,000 feet of altitude after a sudden decompression occurred in the cabin.
Passengers told local media that they heard a loud explosion, and immediately afterwards oxygen masks fell off and panic erupted in the cabin.
"We immediately realized that decompression had occurred. There were screams and for a moment I thought one of the emergency doors had opened," a passenger confessed.
"His head and shoulders were outside the plane"
According to eyewitnesses, the man who was sitting by the window was forcibly pulled towards the opening created, causing his head and shoulders to protrude from the plane.
"Luckily he hadn't unbuckled his seatbelt," said a passenger, adding that his wife held his legs for about five minutes, while other passengers rushed to pull him back into the cabin.
Another passenger reported that the decompression was so severe that the passengers had difficulty breathing, while the injured man was bleeding and lost consciousness several times, most likely due to lack of oxygen and shock.
Aviation expert: It was a case of explosive decompression
Aviation expert Faidon Karaiosifidis describes the incident with the broken window on the Ryanair flight as an "explosive decompression case," commenting to Newsbomb about the event that caused panic in the cabin, the injury of a passenger, and the emergency landing of the plane.
What is explosive decompression?
"It's an explosive decompression. This happens when the internal pressure equalizes with the external pressure and the window acts like a vacuum that sucks everything towards it," explained Karaiosifidis, describing what happened in the plane's cabin.
He recalled that in 2018, a similar incident occurred, when a woman sitting by the window was partially pulled out of the plane and lost her life (Southwest Airlines flight 1380 in the US). That accident, too, he said, was caused by a material defect.
Was the window defective?
Although, as he points out, there is still not enough information, the expert does not rule out the possibility that the window was defective.
"There are times when a window may be damaged. It may have broken on its own due to a material defect. It is something extremely rare, but not impossible," he said.
Was there a problem with the engine?
Regarding initial reports that a part of the engine may have caused the window to break, Karaiosifidis expressed reservations.
"The engine defect has not been confirmed. For a part of the engine to break away, there must have been a serious engine failure. If that were the case, we could be talking about much more serious consequences and damage to the aircraft, not just a piece that broke away."
According to him, if parts had been detached from the engine, this would have been visible even visually. "Everything will be clarified by the investigation," he added, underlining that final answers will only be given after the technical expertise by the competent authorities is completed.
The investigation will examine the maintenance history.
Karaiosifidis explained that investigators will check the entire technical history of the aircraft to see if the window in question had ever been replaced or had had previous interventions.
"Such cases, where a window breaks on its own due to a material defect, are extremely rare. However, when they do occur, they can cause an explosive decompression like the one we saw in this incident," he said.
According to Newsbomb, the Greek national organization for the investigation of air accidents (EODASAAM) is expected to make official announcements on Monday, after all evidence and data from the incident have been analyzed.
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