The wife of a Serbian passenger has shared a harrowing account of the mid-air incident in which her husband was partially pulled out of a Ryanair aircraft after a cabin window shattered during flight.

Speaking about the ordeal, Svetlana Maksimou Ivic said her husband, Ljubisa, was sitting in the window seat when the glass suddenly broke around 30 to 40 minutes after takeoff.

“When the window shattered, he was outside up to his chest and remained there for as long as two minutes,” she said.

According to her account, the woman seated next to her husband immediately grabbed his arm while she and another passenger joined the effort to pull him back into the cabin. Oxygen masks deployed as panic spread throughout the aircraft.

“My husband lost consciousness three times. They tried placing a suitcase against the broken window, but it was sucked out,” she recalled.

She credited her husband’s seatbelt and the quick reactions of fellow passengers with saving his life.

Despite the emergency, she said that the cabin crew did not assist the passengers during the incident and said neither she nor her husband has been contacted by the airline since the flight. Instead, she said other passengers provided water and comfort in the aftermath.

The passenger is now suffering from serious injuries and remains in shock, according to his wife. He is wearing a neck brace and has developed a fear of flying following the incident, while she said she is also receiving medication to cope with the psychological trauma.

The family’s lawyer also raised concerns about the aircraft’s maintenance, claiming the same plane had experienced a technical problem on a flight the previous day. While he acknowledged it is not yet known whether the two incidents are connected, he said there may have been shortcomings in maintenance related to the aircraft’s right engine.

According to a technical expert appointed by the family, the sequence of events began with an engine malfunction. A fragment believed to have detached from the engine struck and shattered the window. The resulting loss of cabin pressure created a powerful suction effect that pulled the passenger partially outside the aircraft.

The expert said the detached object may have been part of an engine blade, adding that the failure could have been caused either by a malfunctioning temperature sensor or by structural fatigue in the blade itself. The exact cause remains under investigation.