SerpApi.Org
The Ryanair passenger who was sucked through an airplane when the window was suddenly smashed on July 10, causing him to be sucked out, has given a recount of the incident and admitted he was "haunted" by the experience.
Ljubisa Karović, 61, from Serbia, had been sleeping on board flight FR1879 from Greece to Germany when the incident happened. A damaged engine had apparently hit the window, causing it to shatter.
He told German newspaper Bild, “As soon as I close my eyes, images appear of the nightmare I experienced. Those few minutes, it is simply a nightmare, which I cannot explain with words."
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“I am not even contemplating getting on another flight. Every time I hear an airplane, I get stress and a fever. I am not well at all when I hear an airplane," Karović said.
Karović was sitting in 11F when a deafening sound "like a bomb," went off. It was the window shattering next to him. Objects flew through the air and out the window as other passengers desperately tried to hold him in place, with his wife, Svetlana, holding on to his legs as he dangled 20,000 ft in the air.
“I was conscious and cannot remember the rest. I had blood all over me, blood was dripping from my face and my hands," he added. Karović was left temporarily paralyzed, and now wears a neck brace. He bears burns on his back and right arm, according to The Sun.
He says that he's been left scarred by the experience and the injuries. “Now everything is bothering me. Mentally, I have hit rock bottom. It has an effect on both my work and family. It is a complete upheaval in my life. I have no concentration. My attention can’t be focused on anything. That means I’m simply not functioning properly," Karović said.
He was partially sucked out of the window before being pulled back in. Ljubisa is understood to have fainted two or three times during the ordeal, according to his lawyer.
Previously, he spoke to press in a villa outside the Greek coastal city of Thessaloniki, he added: "I am lucky. I don’t remember much and my head and neck still hurt but I am still alive."
"It could have been the seatbelt, the fact that I was still strapped in. But maybe it is fate. I believe in God and I thank him every day," he said.
Ryanair said its cabin crew did a "phenomenal job" during the incident. Michael O'Leary, CEO, said an initial investigation into the incident on July 10 between Greece and Germany suggests "it looks like a foreign object damage to the engine on takeoff at Thessaloniki but ... we can't say that definitively".
He insisted that the engine on the 18-year-old Boeing 737 plane had been fully serviced and overhauled in the past two years. The aircraft was operated by Ryanair's subsidiary Malta Air.
