Ljubisa Karovic, 61, suffered injuries when he said his head and right shoulder was sucked out of the plane window
The boss of airliner Ryanair has claimed the company will be disputing the claim by a passenger that he was “sucked out of a window” during a flight.
Michael O’Leary said in a meeting in Dublin on Thursday that the passenger was “certainly sucked towards the window” but did not “get out the window” during the incident.
On July 10, Ljubisa Karovic, 61, said he sustained neck and shoulder injuries when the window broke during his flight from Thessaloniki, Greece, to Memmingen near Munich, Germany.
He said the broken window caused him to become partially sucked out, with his head and right shoulder outside of the aircraft, while his wife, Svetlana Grković Maksimović, and two other passengers, reportedly clung onto his legs.
The victim said he heard a loud “explosion” before objects began flying around the cabin and out of the hole. He was also said to have repeatedly lost consciousness during the ordeal.
Yet O’Leary said to reporters: “He wasn’t partially out the window,” adding: “No, no, no. Part of his face didn’t get out the window”, The Mirror reports.
Mr O’Leary said he was “belted into the seat” and added: “We will be certainly at the end of the process disputing that he or any part of his anatomy will bend out the window.”
He also acknowledged that the passenger did suffer injuries, adding that the airline is “not trying to downplay it”.
It comes as the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in the US is investigating the incident. A preliminary report found that a fan blade in the engine came apart shortly after the plane set off, with the broken fragments smashing the cabin window.
Mr O’Leary continued: “Look, that incident is being investigated by the NTSB, and we have to await the outcome of the NTSB report.”
When asked if Ryanair has done any checks or fixes since the incident. he said: “There’s nothing we can do at the moment.
“We are a participant in the investigation with Boeing, with the NTSB, with GE on the engine side.
“Most of the focus is what happened to the engine. Why was it not self-contained within the cowl of the engine?”
Mr O’Leary also said his legal team were in touch with the passenger’s lawyer and acknowledged Mr Karovic was entitled to “some compensation” but did not believe there is basis “for any class action” or a pay out of “millions and millions”.
The Serbian businessman previously told the Guardian he was “still strapped in” with his seatbelt when the horror unfolded while his wife said they were “eternally grateful” to one passenger who she believes is Albanian for his part in the rescue.
She said: “He did all he could to bring him in and then tried to block the window, first with a bag that was immediately sucked out and then with a suitcase, which worked.”
