Wife and husband on the flight

When a Ryanair flight from Greece to Germany halted after 10 minutes, passengers faced a scary cabin decompressing. A sudden loss of pressure left one passenger half‑out of the aircraft, his shoulder and head sticking through the broken window.

The man’s wife, Svetlana Grković Maksimović, grabbed his legs and, with help from two other passengers, pulled him back inside before the crew could secure the cabin again.

He was badly injured – a damaged head, bleeding from his nose and mouth, and burns on his hand – and is still in hospital, though he survived the ordeal.

The flight returned and landed normally, but aviation investigators are checking whether a possible engine failure caused the window to blow out. Authorities from the EU, the U.S., and Boeing are working together to find out what went wrong.