US to take lead in probe into Ryanair Boeing 737 engine failure over Greece

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON, July 16 (Reuters) - The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday it will lead the investigation into an incident in which a passenger was partly sucked out of a Ryanair Boeing 737's broken window over Greece last week.

The NTSB said Greece had delegated the lead role to the agency in the probe.

A piece of engine broke off the Boeing 737 NG and smashed the window shortly after takeoff from Thessaloniki in Greece on July 10, according to video and the Federal Aviation Administration. The plane, headed to Germany, lost pressure and made an emergency landing.

Fellow passengers held on to the person pulled out of the window, Serbian national Ljubisa Karovic. He was injured and hospitalized.

The event had similarities to problems on two prior Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 NG flights in 2016 and 2018. In the latter, a passenger died after being partially sucked out of a window damaged by a broken fan blade.

But FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford told Reuters in an interview: "I don't think the early indications are that (the recent Ryanair problem) mimics what the Southwest incident was."

After the Southwest incident, the NTSB called on Boeing to redesign the fan cowl structure on 737 NG planes, and the FAA issued an airworthiness directive in 2023 to be completed by 2028.

Bedford said the ongoing investigation is prompting a full reevaluation of the FAA response to the 2018 incident. "Did we miss something? Way too early to tell -- but we can't take it off the board yet," Bedford said.

Southwest said Thursday it has completed the work on approximately 80% of its affected planes and was ahead of schedule to meet the FAA's July 2028 deadline.

Ryanair uses CFM56 engines from manufacturer CFM International on all of its Boeing 737 NG models. The NG is the 737 version that preceded the current MAX generation.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)