How did the Ryanair blowout incident happen?

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 failure, causing rapid decompression and leaving one passenger partially sucked out of the aircraft before fellow travellers pulled him back to safety. 

The incident has raised fresh questions about aircraft safety, maintenance, and just how close this came to being a major aviation disaster. 

Kevin Byrne, retired lieutenant colonel & airport safety and security expert, told The Pat Kenny Show that the type of aircraft was very popular but had suffered right-side uncontained engine failure. 

“In other words, something went wrong”, he explained. 

“One of the spinning blades dislodged a piece of the cowling, which then hit the window and caused a massive instantaneous decompression of the cabin.

“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.”

Mr Byrne said the offending piece of machinery would likely be found and retrieved but that it was “amazing the aircraft engines still ran.”

A similar incident happened to an aircraft belonging to The Southwest Airlines, which suffered an uncontained fan blade failure in New Orleans to Orlando flight.

Passengers boarding a Ryanair aircraft for a flight from Dublin Airport, Ireland.

“It damaged the cowling and punctured the fuselage, causing the decompression, as you might expect. But nobody was injured in that particular regard”

Two years later, there was a fatal accident also with Southwest Airlines because they're huge users of the Boeing 737, 800 and 700 and so forth. 

The exact same type of engine had an uncontained failure due to a fractured fan blade. 

This did shatter the cabin window. A passenger was unfortunately sucked out and did not survive her injuries. 

Motorists and passengers travelling to Dublin Airport. Photograph: Eamonn Farrell.

In the aftermath of the Ryanair incident, the  American and the European Aviation Safety Agency will examine the situation in great detail, Mr Byrne told Newstalk. 

“They will be able to come up with a conclusion in a matter of days, I think, based on their previous experience of this kind of thing and knowing the way the aircraft engine fractured and damaged and that kind of thing.

“When you look back at the number of millions of flying hours on aircraft, they're actually remarkably safe, much safer than a motor vehicle or that kind of thing.”

Main Image: Graphic image of two children looking at a Ryanair aircraft at Dublin airport departure lounge.