The National Transportation Safety Board will take over the investigation into a window blowout on a Ryanair flight that caused a passenger to be partially sucked out of the airplane.
U.S. aviation regulators determined this week that the flight occurred in Greek airspace, not over North Macedonia, as was originally believed. Greek law allows the country’s transportation authority to hand over investigations to the U.S. where appropriate, and the NTSB has officially accepted the assignment, the Associated Press reported on Thursday.
Greece will still support and participate in the probe, officials clarified.
The blowout occurred on a flight from Thessaloniki, Greece, to Memmingen, Germany, on July 10.
Passengers told media outlets that they heard a loud bang, then saw a male passenger being pulled through the smashed window frame. His head and shoulders were briefly outside the aircraft fuselage, they said, but his seatbelt kept him in place, and other passengers helped pull him fully back inside the cabin.
News websites in Greece reported that the man suffered neck and shoulder injuries and friction burns.
Ryanair acknowledged the incident in a statement but provided few details.
The aircraft returned to Thessaloniki, and most of the passengers were booked on a later flight to Memmingen.
FlightAware shows that Ryanair uses a Boeing 737-800 on its Thessaloniki-Memmingen connection.
Some news outlets have reported that the airplane experienced an engine failure, and that a piece of the engine flew off and burst the window. That information has not been confirmed by Ryanair or authorities in Greece or the U.S., though the NTSB did say the flight reported a “right engine issue” in addition to “cabin decompression.”
