Ryanair has disputed claims that a passenger was partially pulled out of an aircraft after a window broke mid-flight in July. The incident involved Ljubisa Karović, a 61-year-old Serbian businessman, who was severely injured when the window beside his seat shattered on a Ryanair flight from Greece to Germany. Karović’s lawyer stated that the passenger’s head and right arm were sucked through the open window due to sudden depressurisation before fellow passengers intervened. Karović himself said he believed his seatbelt kept him inside the cabin as he lost consciousness.
Michael O’Leary, Ryanair’s chief executive, addressed the incident following the airline’s annual general meeting in Dublin. He confirmed that Karović was “certainly sucked towards the window,” but strongly disputed that any part of his body extended outside the plane. O’Leary emphasized that Karović had been “belted into the seat” and rejected suggestions that the passenger’s face or limbs protruded beyond the window frame. He added that the airline would await the National Transportation Safety Board’s (NTSB) final report before making definitive conclusions.
The NTSB in the United States is leading a formal investigation into the incident, which involves Ryanair as well as manufacturers Boeing, of the 737 aircraft, and General Electric, the plane’s engine maker.
Svetlana Karović, the passenger’s wife, recounted how an unidentified fellow traveler, reportedly Albanian, assisted during the emergency by preventing the window from being further opened. According to her account, the passenger initially tried to block the window with a bag, which was sucked out, before successfully using a suitcase to stop the open window from widening, aiding in her husband's rescue as she described him as “half in and out of the plane.”
The window failure incident has coincided with Ryanair’s annual meeting, where shareholders voted on a new pay package for O’Leary potentially worth €150 million, tied to profit goals and leadership tenure until 2032. Approximately one-third of shareholders opposed the package, but it was approved by a two-to-one margin.
Separately, O’Leary criticized the UK’s air traffic control provider Nats over a recent service disruption that resulted in the cancellation of more than 2,100 flights and affected hundreds of thousands of passengers. Nats chief executive Martin Rolfe described the shutdown as an unprecedented event in over five decades of operation. O’Leary accused Rolfe of “telling lies to save his own skin” and attributed the outage to a “spurious flight plan,” referencing a similar error that caused disruption in 2023. Nats clarified that the latest problem involved their flight processing system at the Swanwick centre but was distinct from previous faults. UK aviation minister Keir Mather confirmed the issue affected data availability for controllers and that restoring normal operations required thorough testing.
O’Leary further sparked controversy by using a longstanding description of competing airlines as “high-fare rapists,” a phrase he defended despite criticism over its appropriateness.