--- title: "Man Sucked Out of Airplane, Dangles by Seatbelt" description: "A Ryanair passenger was partly sucked out of an airplane after the window next to him suddenly \"detached.\"" date: "2026-07-12" modified: "2026-07-12" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/advanced-transport/man-sucked-out-of-airplane-dangles-by-seatbelt" categories: - "Advanced Transport" --- # Man Sucked Out of Airplane, Dangles by Seatbelt ![A stylized photo illustration featuring a Ryanair plane over a stark black background.]() *Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: BearFotos / Shutterstock* It pays to buckle up. A passenger on Ryanair — [because of course]() — had his insistence on keeping his seat belt fastened abruptly validated when the window next to him suddenly "detached" and sucked the bulk of his body out of the plane. Witnesses [told *Agence France-Presse*]() that the man, a tourist from Serbia en route from Thessaloniki in Greece to Memmingen in Germany, had to be pulled in by the other passengers. Yes, several of them. "Most of us had fallen asleep, we had closed our eyes. There was a noise, like a tyre bursting," one of them told *Radio Thessaloniki*, per *AFP*. "We immediately realized there had been a decompression. There were screams... for a moment I thought someone had accidentally opened the emergency door." "The masks dropped and there was a strong smell," she added. "The head and shoulders of one passenger were outside the window. Fortunately, he hadn't taken off his seat belt." Per *AFP*, Greek media reported that the window was broken by a piece of debris that came off one of the plane's engines, causing the cabin to decompress. Ryanair in a statement described the incident anticlimactically. The plane "returned to Thessaloniki shortly after take-off when a passenger window detached during the flight. The aircraft landed normally and the passengers returned to the terminal." An apology would've been nice, maybe. Nearly getting airplane-keelhauled by the wind gods could take quite the toll physically and mentally. The man was hospitalized with friction burns, but thankfully authorities said he was in good condition otherwise. You may remember a similar incident occurred over two years ago, when the door panel on an Alaska Airlines flight [suddenly blew out midair](), causing a massive scandal for the plane's manufacturer Boeing. That plane was a Boeing 737 MAX 9; the Ryanair one was a 737 NG. **More on transportation:** [*America Trembles as Transportation Secretary Announces Plans for Air Traffic Controllers to Lean on AI Tools*]() ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()