AP —
Ryanair’s chief executive on Thursday disputed that a passenger was injured during a flight on one of the company’s planes in July, with some being sucked out of a broken window.
Ljubisa Kalovic suffered injuries to her neck and shoulders and friction burns when a window broke shortly after takeoff on a flight from northern Greece to Germany on July 10.
Karovic’s wife and witnesses said the drop in air pressure pulled his head and shoulders out the window. He said his wife grabbed his leg and helped other passengers pull him back onto the jet.
Airline chief Michael O’Leary acknowledged that Mr Kalovich was injured and was entitled to compensation, but not in the amount of “millions of dollars”.
“He wasn’t partially out of the window,” Mr O’Leary said after the Irish low-cost carrier’s annual general meeting in Dublin. “While we do not believe any part of his body came out of the window, we do believe he was sucked towards the window in very dramatic circumstances.”
Karovic was wearing a seatbelt at the time. Passengers intervened and covered the chipped window with a metal box prepared by flight attendants.
The National Transportation Safety Board said in a preliminary report that fragments of a broken fan blade from the right engine of the Boeing 737-800 crashed, breaking windows and damaging the fuselage and other parts of the plane.
Flight attendants told investigators they heard and felt loud, continuous vibrations and saw smoke and fog filling the cabin before oxygen masks fell from the ceiling.
The plane returned safely to Greece.
