Ryanair Plane: Fan Blade Shatters Cabin Window
Preliminary report from the US National Transportation Safety Board: a Ryanair plane lost a fan blade in its engine, and bird remains were found inside it.
The US National Transportation Safety Board released a preliminary report on August 13 into a flight out of Thessaloniki during which a passenger from Serbia was partially pulled through a shattered window. The report names a technical cause for the first time. A fan blade broke off inside the right engine, and the debris punched through the fuselage and shattered a cabin window. The Ryanair aircraft returned to Thessaloniki airport roughly an hour after takeoff.
The incident happened on July 10. It involved flight FR1879 from Thessaloniki to Memmingen, Germany, on a Boeing 737-800 registered 9H-QEU. The flight was operated by Malta Air, part of the Ryanair Group.
Six minutes after takeoff
The plane was at roughly 15,000 feet when a fan blade broke off inside the right engine, a CFM56-7B. Debris flew out of the engine and punched through the fuselage in several places. One cabin window shattered, triggering a sudden loss of cabin pressure. Oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling.
The crew brought the plane down to about 6,000 feet and circled there for roughly 30 minutes to burn off fuel. The landing back in Thessaloniki went smoothly, and passengers were returned to the terminal.
The narrow body jet carries up to 189 passengers. It was delivered new to Ryanair in 2008 and has flown for Malta Air since 2022, still wearing Ryanair’s livery.
A seatbelt kept him from falling out
Ljubisa Karovic, 61, a Serbian citizen, was seated by the window that shattered. He was pulled head and shoulders through the opening and held back only by his fastened seatbelt.
Passengers seated near him pulled him back into the cabin. A doctor who happened to be on board gave him first aid. Karovic suffered neck and shoulder injuries along with friction burns.
What broke the blade?
Investigators found bird remains inside the engine, pointing to the possibility that the Ryanair jet struck a flock of birds during takeoff. What actually caused the blade to fracture has not yet been determined.
Maintenance records show the right engine’s blades were inspected by ultrasound in May 2026 and again in November 2025, with no damage found either time. Crews reported four suspected bird strikes involving that same engine over the previous year, and bird remains were recovered after two of them.
Jeff Guzzetti, a former NTSB investigator who reviewed the preliminary report, said the required maintenance had been carried out on schedule.
“We know what happened, and to some extent why it happened, but there are still unanswered questions that the Board will get to.”
Guzzetti made the comment to The Associated Press. He said the investigation would still need to establish how the inspections were carried out and whether earlier suspected bird strikes left damage that went unnoticed.
Ordered modifications had not been carried out
The US Federal Aviation Administration ordered modifications to the engine coverings on Boeing 737 aircraft in 2025. The directives took effect in April of that year, with a deadline of July 2028 for the most extensive work. The report states that those modifications had not yet been made on this aircraft.
The directives followed two earlier fan blade failures in which pieces of the engine covering flew toward the fuselage. In one of those cases, in 2018, a Southwest Airlines passenger was killed after debris knocked out a window and the cabin suddenly lost pressure.
NTSB rebukes Ryanair’s CEO
The Board publicly rebuked Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary. He had told investors that the investigation was focused on damage from a foreign object rather than the aircraft’s age or maintenance history. The Board said investigators have ruled nothing out and that O’Leary was not authorized to speak about the investigation.
Greece handed the investigation to the US agency under international aviation rules and is taking part through its own accident investigation agency. The preliminary report draws no conclusion about the cause. That determination will come in the final report.
