Ryanair will dispute passenger’s claim he was sucked out of window

The smashed window of the Ryanair aircraft seen after it made an emergency landing in July. Michael O’Leary said he was ‘not trying to downplay’ the incident. Photograph: Despoina Papapavlou/Reuters View image in fullscreen The smashed window of the Ryanair aircraft seen after it made an emergency landing in July. Michael O’Leary said he was ‘not trying to downplay’ the incident. Photograph: Despoina Papapavlou/Reuters Ryanair will dispute passenger’s claim he was sucked out of window CEO Michael O’Leary tells reporters the businessman was sucked ‘towards’ but not out of the opening Ryanair has said it will be “disputing” that any part of a passenger’s body was sucked outside when a window on one of its aircraft broke while in flight. US investigators are examining the incident which left Ljubisa Karović, 61, severely injured when the window beside him shattered on a Ryanair flight from Greece to Germany in July. Karović’s lawyer said the Serbian businessman was hauled back in after his head and right arm were sucked through the window of the Boeing 737 owing to the sudden depressurisation. However, Ryanair’s chief executive, Michael O’Leary, said the airline would be “disputing” that account, telling reporters after the airline’s annual general meeting (AGM) in Dublin on Thursday that Karović was “certainly sucked towards the window, but he didn’t get out the window”. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in the US is leading the accident investigation, alongside Boeing, engine manufacturer GE, and Ryanair. O’Leary said: “He wasn’t partially out the window. Part of his face didn’t get out the window. We don’t think any part of his body got out the window, but he was certainly sucked in very dramatic circumstances towards the window.” View image in fullscreen Michael O’Leary disputed the account of the air traffic control provider Nats over the reasons for the latest air traffic control failure on Tuesday. Photograph: Kuba Stężycki/ReutersHe said the passenger had been “belted into the seat”, adding: “We will be certainly at the end of the process disputing that he or any part of his anatomy will bend out the window.” O’Leary said he was “not trying to downplay it” and the airline would “have to await the outcome of the NTSB report”. In an interview with the Guardian, Karović said he believed his seatbelt had kept him in the plane as he blacked out, while his wife, Svetlana, said one passenger played a crucial part in his rescue, as she watched her husband “half in and out of the plane”.