Ryanair window blowout: How did it happen?
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What happened on the Ryanair flight that led to a cabin window blowout?
What began as a routine Ryanair flight from Greece to Germany turned into a mid-air emergency when a cabin window was dislodged after an apparent engine issue causing rapid decompression and leaving one passenger partially sucked out of the aircraft before fellow travellers pulled him back to safety. This is what Ryanair have to say... A Ryanair flight from Thessaloniki to Memmingen in Germany on Friday morning, 10th of July, returned to Thessaloniki shortly after takeoff when a passenger window dislodged in flight. The aircraft landed normally and passengers returned to the terminal. One passenger requested and received medical assistance on the ground in Thessaloniki. In order to minimize any delay, a replacement aircraft was arranged to bring passengers to Memmingen, which departed Thessaloniki at 9.53 local time.
on Friday. So that seems all very harmless. But the incident has raised fresh questions about aircraft safety, maintenance, and just how close this came to being a major aviation disaster. Joining me now to explain all is Kevin Byrne, retired Lieutenant Colonel and airport and safety and security expert. Kevin, good morning. Good morning, Pat. What do you think happened here? Because it's quite mystifying and frightening in a way. If it can happen once, it can happen twice, three times.
Indeed, it has happened three times, Pat, if you look back over this. This aircraft is a Boeing 737-800. We're very familiar with them. And it's powered by a thing called the CFM56-7B engine. It's a commoner garden. Believe it or not, in context, 34,000 of these jet engines have been used. And they're used widely in different aircraft types, all of the 737 new generations. Many of the Airbus 340s, many of the 320s as well. And you've got military applications, C-135s and a whole host of aircraft. So it's a remarkably popular aircraft. Sorry, engine, I should say. You fit it to lots of different aircraft types. And it is one of the most reliable turbine engines ever made, believe it or not.
What official statement did Ryanair make about the incident and landing?
What it looks as if it happened was a right side uncontained engine failure. In other words, something went wrong. One of the spinning blades and it dislodged a piece of the cowling, which then hit the window and caused a massive instantaneous decompression of the cannon. Now, that means the poor unfortunate gentleman, who luckily, by the way, had his seatbelt on, the first bit of his body, his head and the shoulders, went out of the aircraft. Had it been uncontained, in other words, no seatbelt, he might have had his whole body sucked out, and that would have been catastrophic in every sense of the word.
Now, the question of a bit of the cowling being dislodged, you know, the engine is also traveling. Suppose the aircraft is traveling at 500 miles an hour, 500 knots, whatever it might be. Well, also, so too is the cowling. So the relative speed when it dislodges would be relatively low, I would have thought.
Yeah, yeah. It's just that if it's a piece of metal off a broken blade, it goes through the cowling, even though most of them are designed to contain the blades which are spinning at many thousands of RPM. The centrifugal forces are catastrophic, or not catastrophic, but they're very significant. But it only has to go maybe a few metres between the engine cowling and the window, and the window is a weak point in that regard.
But I suppose if it was a part of a blade, I mean, that would be turning so fast, and its ability to plough through the fuselage would be significant.
Yes.
It's a very good thing. Two things are very good. The aircraft is climbing through about 15,000 feet. So first of all, the altitude difference, it's about half the density of air that you get at the sea level. So the squeeze effect, people think they're sucked out of aircraft. In fact, they're not that. They're actually squeezed out like toothpaste from a tube in that way. Yeah, so at 33,000 feet, then it's catastrophic from that point of view. You probably can't survive it. So this was lucky. Also, the aircraft was climbing to its cruising altitude and it was doing probably between 250 and 280 knots.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What happened on the Ryanair flight that led to a cabin window blowout?
0:01–2:05
2
What official statement did Ryanair make about the incident and landing?
2:05–4:52
3
Who is Kevin Byrne and why is his expertise relevant to this investigation?
4:52–6:08
4
Could an uncontained CFM56-7B engine failure cause a window to be dislodged?
6:08–8:55