Ryanair passenger partially sucked out of window on flight from Greece

By Renee Maltezou, David Shepardson and Padraic Halpin

ATHENS/WASHINGTON D.C., July 10 (Reuters) - A passenger was partially sucked through a dislodged window on a Ryanair flight shortly after takeoff from Thessaloniki in Greece on Friday, two airport sources said, forcing the aircraft to make an emergency landing.

The plane was scheduled to fly from Thessaloniki to Memmingen airport in Germany but returned to Thessaloniki "when a passenger window dislodged inflight," Ryanair said in a statement. It is unclear what led to the broken window.

The airline said one person received medical assistance, but did not elaborate on the cause.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) confirmed the plane was a Boeing 737 NG. Boeing did not immediately comment.

A similar incident occurred in 2018 in a Boeing 737 NG and raises questions about whether it could be related.

Local media in Greece reported that a piece of engine broke off and smashed a window early in the flight on Friday, causing the cabin to decompress and sucking one passenger partially out of the window. The two airport sources with knowledge of the incident relayed the same details to Reuters.

FlightRadar24 showed a Boeing 737 NG jet en route to Memmingen diverted back to Thessaloniki on Friday morning.

The same plane had diverted back to Thessaloniki on a flight to Sarajevo on Thursday evening, also shortly after takeoff, according to the data and a source, although it is unclear why. 

The FAA confirmed that a window broke on Friday's flight, and said it was ready to support the Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority (HCAA) and NTSB in the investigation.

Ryanair uses CFM56 engines from manufacturer CFM International on all of its Boeing 737 NG models.

Ryanair did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment on details of the incident, as well as for confirmation on the make of the plane and the engine. 

"The aircraft landed normally and passengers returned to the terminal," Ryanair said in its statement. 

PRECEDENT IN 2018

Unverified videos posted on social media from the inside of the plane showed a broken window and oxygen masks dangling from the ceiling.

One of the Greek airport sources said that the aircraft is still on the ground in Thessaloniki and investigators are looking into the incident. 

In 2018, a fan blade in the engine of a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 NG broke and caused a broken window that partially sucked out a passenger who was killed in the incident. At the time, the 43-year-old was the first person killed in a U.S. passenger airline accident since 2009.

After that incident, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board called on Boeing to redesign the fan cowl structure on 737 NG planes. There had been an engine failure on another Southwest 737 NG in 2016.

The incident prompted regulators to require airlines to inspect the fan blades on a more regular basis, essentially every nine to 12 months.

The accident in 2018 occurred 20 minutes into the flight when a fan blade fractured as a result of a fatigue crack on a Boeing 737-700 jet powered by two CFM International CFM56-7B engines after taking off from New York's LaGuardia Airport.

CFM International, the engine manufacturer, is a transatlantic joint venture between General Electric Co and France's Safran SA. CFM did not comment.

(Reporting by Renee Maltezou, Michele Kambas, Padraic Halpin, Ivana Sekularac, Conor Humphries, Tim Hepher and Joanna Plucinska; Editing by Edward McAllister and Susan Fenton)