A Ryanair passenger has spoken out after a terrifying mid-flight incident left him partially sucked out of a plane window.
Videos by Wide Open Country
The incident involved 61-year-old Ljubisa Karovic during a July 10 flight from Greece to Germany.
Karovic is now required to wear a neck brace for at least six weeks as he recovers from the ordeal.
Plane Incident Leaves Passenger Partially Sucked Out of Window
Karovic and his lawyer described the incident in an interview with The Guardian.
"Its the noise before the chaos, the noise that is always there when I close my eyes to sleep," Karovic said.
Ryanair said a window became "dislodged inflight," causing Karovic to be partially sucked headfirst out of the aircraft.
The passenger said he had been asleep in the window seat when the sound of the window shattering jolted him awake.
"I am lucky," he added. "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."
Karovic's lawyer, Vasilis Tsiaras, said his client "was hurled out of the window from his chest up and immediately lost consciousness" after the cabin lost pressure.
"..at 15,000ft he ended up with his head and right arm outside the aircraft as it moved at a speed of more than 600km/h. Imagine that! He looked at death, that other world, and came back," Tsiaras added.
The Boeing 737 was traveling from Thessaloniki, Greece, to Memmingen, Germany, when the incident occurred.
The aircraft was forced to make an emergency landing due to a passenger needing immediate medical assistance.
Wife Describes Desperate Moments After Window Failed
Karovic's wife, Svetlana Grkovic, previously said the aircraft had been in the air for around 30 minutes before the incident.
"It was as if a part of the engine broke off and hit the window where my husband, Ljubisa, was sitting. Luckily, he was strapped in," she said.
Grkovic said her husband's body was "sticking out of the plane."
She also alleged that cabin crew did not immediately help her husband, instead assisting other passengers.
"One man, I think he was an Albanian, was incredible," 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. We are eternally grateful to him."
The incident reportedly lasted around two minutes, during which Karovic was partially outside the aircraft.
Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary initially blamed a "foreign object" for the damage to the aircraft's engine.
He also said the plane was 18 years old, but its engine had been fully serviced and overhauled within the previous two years.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board has launched an investigation into the incident.
