Wow, this one is true nightmare fuel: On Friday, 10 July, a window on the right-hand side of a Boeing 737 NG shattered at 15,000 feet (about 4.5 kilometres) up, while the plane was climbing away from Thessaloniki Airport (LGTS) in Greece. The passenger sitting in the seat next to the window was partly sucked out, ending up with his head outside the airplane. His wife, who was sitting next to him, reportedly grabbed him and pulled him back inside the cabin.

This was Ryanair flight FR1879, from Thessaloniki to Memmingen in Germany, performed on behalf of Ryanair by a Malta Air plane (9H-QEU). Since the crew reported issues with the right-hand (No. 2) engine and pictures have been circulated that show this engine with a fan blade missing and a hole in the engine cowling, it seems likely that this plane suffered a blade-out event (FBO). That is: The fan blade ripped loose, exited the engine enclosure and hit the plane’s window. The aircraft diverted back to Thessaloniki and landed safely.

So far, there are no clues why the engine blade decided to quit the engine. The plane was in climb-out, where the engines are under a lot less strain than the preceeding max take-off thrust. Maybe a bird strike?

I guess that passenger was lucky he wasn’t decapitated by that fan blade. Exiting out the engine, that thing must have had quite a lot of kinetic energy. And here’s another good reason to always strap in aboard on airplane at all times, BTW.

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