Ryanair chief insists ‘everyone was belted in’ when aircraft window broke

Ryanair chief Michael O’Leary has denied that a passenger on a flight from Thessaloniki was almost sucked out of a window earlier this month while admitting it “was a dramatic event” and welcoming an investigation into what happened.

The Ryanair Group chief executive referred to “salacious media reporting” of the incident involving passenger Ljubisa Karović on July 10.

The BBC reported Ryanair passenger Karović was “nearly sucked head-first out of a Ryanair cabin window” after an engine failure resulted in parts smashing a window during a flight from Thessaloniki to Memmingen in Germany.

It quoted Karovic’s wife Svetlana Grković Maksimović as saying his “right shoulder and head were outside the plane”.

O’Leary acknowledged: “That was a dramatic event for passengers.” But he insisted: “All passengers and crew were belted in [at the time]. Nobody was out of any window.”

He attributed the broken window and depressurisation as due to “a fan blade issue” with an engine, while conceding it was too early to say with certainty, saying: “On initial investigation it looks like a foreign object damaged the engine on take-off from Thessaloniki.”

O’Leary dismissed any suggestion that the age of the aircraft was a factor and said: “We welcome the investigation.”

He said: “The aircraft was 18 years old. The engine had been fully overhauled within the last two years. It has nothing to with the age of the aircraft or engine.”

Speaking as Ryanair unveiled first quarter results for the three months to June, O’Leary also downplayed the impact of queues at many EU airports due to the new biometric Entry-Exit System (EES) for non-EU visitors.

O’Leary said: “I don’t think airport queues are that significant. We’ve identified about 15 airports in Portugal, Italy and Spain where border control is understaffed and called on the European Commission to suspend the system.”

He argued: “It’s another European screw up. The EU has miss-designed the system. But is it going to stop people travelling? No. Airport queues are frustrating, but it’s not something unheard of.”

Ryanair reported a profit of €538 million for the three months to June, 34% down on the previous year, which O’Leary attributed “primarily to a large spike in oil prices” on the 20% of fuel on which the airline was “unhedged”– meaning it had to pay the ‘spot’ price rather a price agreed in advance.