A passenger on a Ryanair flight was reportedly almost sucked out of a window after it shattered in mid-air during a journey from Greece.
The man was said to have been lifted out of his seat into the plane’s slipstream and hung headfirst out of the window after an engine failure resulted in parts smashing the acrylic window, according to local reports.
The passenger, reportedly a 61-year-old Serbian, was saved from being completely sucked out of the Boeing 737 because his wife “held him by the legs”.
The incident took place on Ryanair flight FR1879, which was scheduled to fly from Thessaloniki in Greece to Memmingen near Munich in Germany on Friday. It was operated by the the budget airline’s subsidiary Malta Air.
There is no way on earth a grown person fits through one of these tiny windows in one piece.
They fit it the pressure difference is high enough
The pressure differential starts the process, but I think the real problems start if some part of the person gets outside the plane and gets caught in the slipstream. Then you’re fighting a mutiple hundred mile per hour wind that’s trying to pull you through a gap that’s too small.
I was just thinking about the scene from a Bond film where someone (mebbies Odd-job) gets sucked out of a bullet hole
It can’t be that bad. Sticking your head out the cockpit window is standard procedure if the window is obscured on Boeing aircraft.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTYT7ERrw_U&t=146
Of course, the fuselage is not designed for that sort of thing around the passenger windows, so it wouldn’t be quite as chill as in this video.
Note that in the video they state this can only be done at a safe speed and altitude, with the plane depresurised, and only during takeoff. They also state that the shape of the fuselage is designed to push airflow away from the cockpit side windows. None of this holds is a passenger cabin window fails at cruising altitude and speed.