A woman held on to her husband’s legs after his head was almost sucked out of the window of a Ryanair flight last Friday. “Half his body was sticking out of the plane,” she said.
Svetlana Grkovic, who was traveling with her husband Ljuvisa Karovic from Thessaloniki, Greece, to Memmingen, Germany, told Greek public broadcaster ERT that the gun was “up to my chest” for two minutes.
“I reacted immediately and grabbed his leg. I thought, ‘If we die, we die together,'” Grković told Serbian outlet Nova.
With the help of two other passengers, Grković said she was able to drag her husband, who had fallen unconscious three times, back inside.
Grkovic said she believed part of the plane’s engine failed, shattering the window next to her husband and causing depressurization in the cabin. Other passengers also reported hearing what sounded like an explosion.
A technical adviser appointed by the family believes the accident began with the failure of the aircraft’s right engine, causing debris to hit and shatter the cabin windows before causing a rapid drop in cabin pressure. That assessment has not been confirmed by investigators.
Passengers previously told local media that Karovic was wearing a seatbelt, which helped passengers hold him down while his head and shoulders were outside.
Svetlana Grković said her 61-year-old husband was “seriously injured and in shock.”
“It is important to me that he is alive. His hands were particularly badly injured and burned. He cannot communicate and does not remember the entire incident,” she said.
