Ryanair “not downplaying” that man was sucked out of window, but will “dispute"

Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary has announced that the airline will “dispute” Ljubisa Karović’s account that his upper body was sucked out of the window on a Ryanair flight.

Ryanair to dispute Karović’s story

In mid-July, a Ryanair flight to Munich-Memmingen returned to Thessaloniki to make an emergency landing after a piece of the engine broke away, smashed a window and the upper half of a passenger's body was sucked out.

61-year-old Ljubisa Karović was only saved from being further sucked out after his wife and other passengers held him down, then blocked the broken window with a metal box until the plane landed. 

Karović sustained serious injuries, including friction burns to his neck and right arm and was taken to hospital in Greece. Shortly after the incident, Karović’s lawyer, Vasilis Tsiaras, claimed Ryanair cabin crew offered to help his client “at no point” and that after the accident the Irish budget airline contacted Karović and his wife only to rebook their flight.

One month later, a preliminary report by the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) found that a piece of engine fan blade debris likely broke the window and that the plane “experienced a No 2 (right) engine fan-blade-out (FBO) failure during climb out from the Thessaloniki International Airport”. Ryanair has yet to comment on the report's details.

Ryanair “not trying to downplay it”

Now, CEO Michael O’Leary has said his airline will be “disputing” Karović’s account, and that while the Serbian businessman was “certainly sucked towards the window, but he didn’t get out the window”.

“He wasn’t partially out the window,” O’Leary told reporters at Ryanair’s AGM in Dublin this week. “Part of his face didn’t get out the window. We don’t think any part of his body got out the window, but he was certainly sucked in very dramatic circumstances towards the window.”

The Irish billionaire said the airline was “not trying to downplay” the incident, and that at the end of the investigation it would be certain “whether he or any part of his anatomy will bend out of that window”.

O’Leary previously commented that the airline would wait until the NTSB's full investigation was completed before deciding whether to offer Karović compensation.