Ryanair is disputing claims that a passenger was pulled through a broken window during a flight from Greece to Germany in July.
Chief Executive Michael O'Leary stated that 61-year-old Serbian businessman Ljubisa Karovic was drawn toward the opening after a window shattered next to his seat, but insisted that no part of the passenger passed outside the plane.
The incident occurred on a Ryanair flight from Thessaloniki to Memmingen, Germany, when debris from a damaged engine shattered a cabin window. The sudden decompression left Karovic with friction burns and serious injuries.
The United States National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the incident alongside aircraft manufacturer Boeing, engine maker GE, and Irish budget airline Ryanair.
Karovic's lawyer stated that the sudden drop in cabin pressure pulled his client's head and right arm through the opening before another passenger managed to drag him back into the aircraft.
Ryanair account of cabin decompression
Speaking after the company's annual general meeting of shareholders in Dublin, O'Leary said Ryanair would contest any account claiming that part of a passenger's body exited the aircraft.
O'Leary said Karovic was buckled into his seat belt at the time of the blowout. He stated that the passenger was certainly pulled toward the window under dramatic conditions, but was not half out the window and did not have any portion of his face or body pass outside.
O'Leary added that he was not attempting to downplay the severity of the event, and said the airline would await the final conclusions of the report from federal investigators.
Passenger account and mid-air rescue
Karovic told The Guardian that he believed his fastened seatbelt was the only thing that kept him inside the aircraft when he lost consciousness during the sudden decompression.
His wife, Svetlana Karovic, said a fellow passenger played a vital role in saving her husband's life after seeing him positioned half inside and half outside the plane.
She said an unknown male passenger, believed to be Albanian, did everything he could to pull Karovic back into the cabin and then attempted to block the hole.
According to Svetlana Karovic, the passenger first tried to block the opening using a bag, which was immediately sucked out of the plane, before successfully wedging a suitcase into the gap to help contain the situation.
Shareholder vote on executive pay
The discussion around the July flight coincided with Ryanair's annual general meeting in Dublin, where investors voted on a new remuneration package for O'Leary worth approximately 150 million euros, or 129 million pounds.
The compensation agreement, which was framed during the summer, includes options to purchase 10 million shares if the company meets specific profitability and market valuation targets. The terms retain O'Leary at the helm of the airline until 2032.
Approximately one third of participating shareholders voted against the executive pay package, though the measure ultimately passed by a ratio of roughly two to one.
Clash over UK air traffic control outage
During the meeting, O'Leary also renewed his public dispute with National Air Traffic Services, the provider of air traffic control services in the United Kingdom, over a major technical failure that disrupted European aviation.
The system outage led to the cancellation of more than 2,100 flights and affected hundreds of thousands of passengers across the region.
NATS Chief Executive Martin Rolfe told the BBC that the incident was unprecedented in more than 50 years of operation. O'Leary rejected that assessment and accused Rolfe of lying to save himself.
Ryanair stated that NATS initially informed airline operational teams that the disruption stemmed from an incorrect flight plan, similar to a previous failure that occurred in 2023.
NATS disputed that comparison, stating that the problem involved the flight processing system at its Swanwick control center and differed from technical errors that caused widespread flight disruptions in 2023 and 2025.
Britain's Aviation Minister Keir Mather told the House of Commons that NATS suffered a technical data processing issue that impacted information available to controllers. He said systems required extensive testing before operations could safely resume.
NATS confirmed that the breakdown was technical and stated it did not believe a cyberattack was involved. The agency is scheduled to submit a formal report next week, while the UK Department for Transport requested an independent evaluation by the Civil Aviation Authority.
Controversy over airline remarks
O'Leary sparked further controversy during media briefings surrounding the Dublin meeting by repeating previous statements that described higher-fare competing airlines as rapists.
The Ryanair chief executive said passengers were desperate to fly with Ryanair because they could not afford the high fares charged by competitor airlines across Europe.
When asked by reporters whether he considered such terminology appropriate for a public corporate briefing, O'Leary replied that he absolutely did.
