By Ivana Sekularac and Alexandros Avramidis
THESSALONIKI, Greece, July 14 (Reuters) - Svetlana Maksimovic and her husband Ljubisa Karovic had just settled into a Ryanair flight last week when a loud bang pierced the hum of engines. Within seconds, she saw her 61-year-old husband being sucked out of the plane through a dislodged cabin window.
In what Greek officials have described as a rare incident, Karovic, sitting in a window seat, was pulled through the window as his wife and others held on to him on the flight between the Greek city of Thessaloniki and Germany on July 10.
"I've never heard anything louder in my life before. I just (then ) turned around and saw that part of his body had already gone out the window," Maksimovic told Reuters. His head and right arm were hanging out, she said.
Greek media and airport sources said that most likely a piece of engine broke off and smashed a window early in the flight, causing the cabin to decompress.
Boeing has said it was assisting the investigation led by North Macedonia, over which the incident occurred. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency are involved in the probe. A Greek prosecutor has launched a probe into the case, while Greek air accident investigators are also looking into it. The aircraft is still in Greece.
Karovic is now being treated in hospital in Thessaloniki with severe neck and arm injuries, Maksimovic said.
The couple have hired a lawyer. "What happened was extremely serious," said the couple's legal adviser, Vassilis Tsiaras, adding that the pending results of the probe were pivotal.
Ryanair, which has confirmed that a window dislodged during the flight, said it would not comment further while the incident is under formal investigation.
PULLING HIM BACK INSIDE
After takeoff, Karovic was relaxed and had probably fallen asleep, Maksimovic said.
She said that after the loud bang occurred, a woman sitting next to her husband kept pulling his left arm but it was only after another passenger came to help that they succeeded in getting him back inside the plane, which had by then started to descend.
Maksimovic, who had left her seat to help her husband, put an oxygen mask on him while another passenger gave her one for her own use.
"His face was completely disfigured, there was blood everywhere and his ears, eyes, nose were completely deformed," she said, adding that her husband was still struggling to recover.
"The consequences remain for him and for me," Maksimovic said. "How we're going to heal and how long that treatment will last and in what way, we'll see."
(Reporting by Alexandros Avramidis in Thessaloniki and Ivana Sekularac in Belgrade; Additional reporting by Renee Maltezou in Athens and Padraic Halpin in Dublin, Editing by Michele Kambas and Matthew Lewis)
