Ryanair passenger sucked toward broken window after midair engine failure

amelius 61 points 62 comments July 10, 2026
simpleflying.com · View on Hacker News

Discussion Highlights (14 comments)

pfdietz

This is one reason to always be wearing your seat belt tightly when flying.

culopatin

I wonder if Ryanair is going to charge them for being oversized to fit through their designated window.

flutas

Extremely similar to Southwest flight 1380 which killed a person in the US after they were partially sucked out of a broken window from an engine failure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Airlines_Flight_1380

niwtsol

I thought that the speed of the air moving outside of the plane had a bigger impact on the pressure imbalance that causes someone to be "sucked out" of plane. It appears that is a false belief, the inside/outside pressure difference is from the artificial pressurization of the internal cabin. I blame a high school physics teacher for the memorable "why does a soft top convertible poof out when driving fast?" question as a preamble to explaining bernoulli for my false assumption.

root-parent

R.Y.A.N.A.I.R. — Remove Yourself And Never Ask If Refunded

Banania

From https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgk65knkyzdo Media reports in Greece and Germany quoted passengers describing a loud bang followed by the window breaking and oxygen masks falling from the ceiling shortly after the Boeing 737 had taken off. They believe the window was smashed by pieces of the jet's engine - although Ryanair has not commented on this.

zh3

First place to look when this sort of thing happens is pprune.org - lots of pilots on there, often with specific knowledge of the aircraft type and/or of the incident itself. In this case: https://www.pprune.org/accidents-close-calls/672872-ryanair-...

clickety_clack

Well, this isn’t very typical, I’d like to make that point. Look, the windows not supposed to fall off, for a start. These things are built to rigorous aeronautical engineering standards — cardboard’s out, cardboard derivatives, no cellotape, no string. So chance in a million, really. And to be clear, the plane that the window fell off was flown to safety. So there’s nothing out there but birds, air, wind and clouds… and the window that fell off.

comrade1234

Would it be strange to not have any windows on a plane? You could put thin oled panels on the wall instead. Seems like that would be more structurally sound.

rediguanayum

Good photo of the broken window in Aviation Herald: https://avherald.com/h?article=53ba2a01&opt=0 More discussion in: Airliners.net: https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1510797&...

consumer451

Lesson learned for Ryanair leadership: charge more for seats not in range of debris from uncontained turbine failures. Seriously though, as an aviation geek, I always avoid those seats when given a choice.

skrebbel

> A report in a Hungarian publication claims, "A passenger was sucked into the window by the change in air pressure, with the 61-year-old man's head sticking out of the plane. Witnesses say his wife grabbed him, which was the reason he wasn't pulled out of the plane by the lower air pressure outside." [translation by Google] Points for the wife! (from https://www.pprune.org/accidents-close-calls/672872-ryanair-... )

lokar

He was pushed, not sucked. Pressure never sucks.

drcongo

On a Boeing? No way!

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