Ryanair passenger sucked toward broken window after midair engine failure | Hacker News Reader

Ryanair passenger sucked toward broken window after midair engine failure

simpleflying.com

80 pointsamelius75 comments

Well, this isn’t very typical, I’d like to make that point.

Look, the windows not supposed to fall off, for a start. These things are built to rigorous aeronautical engineering standards — cardboard’s out, cardboard derivatives, no cellotape, no string. So chance in a million, really.

And to be clear, the plane that the window fell off was flown to safety. So there’s nothing out there but birds, air, wind and clouds… and the window that fell off.

The plane was towed outside the atmosphere.

The (hilarious) reference: https://youtu.be/3m5qxZm_JqM

The window didn't "fall off". In article's 1st paragraph:

"debris from a dramatic engine failure caused damage to the aircraft's window"

That's high-velocity pieces of metal. Hard to prevent that from shattering a window if engine housing didn't catch it.

How much stronger, thicker & heavier you want to make those windows? Costing how much more fuel? To save how many lives per year?

I'd think airplane builders (note: not airlines!) are more qualified to make that calculation than armchair safety 'experts'.

Well there are a lot of these airplanes going around the world all the time, and very seldom does anything like this happen. I just don’t want people thinking that airplanes aren’t safe.

whoosh..

Fan and turbine failures are supposed to be contained by the engine casing - it's part of certification. But as we see here, uncontained failures do occur. In general "airplane builders" do the absolute minimum to meet certification so they're not going to add reinforcement to protect against such an event until they're forced Into doing so by the authorities.

Turboprops can't, of course, contain a propellor failure which is why they have a big slab of armour in line with the prop disk. So in that case, yes, safety wins over cost and weight.

In the case of the Quantas A380 departing from Changi some shrapnel from the engine explosion did go through the aircraft's body, cutting cables, making a mess of the control-command systems. I don't know how one could contain the kind of energy imparted to these metal bits, especially on engines with so much power...

Fan blade failures are supposed to be contained. Turbine disk failures are not. This leads to several characteristics: disks are life-limited parts where they must be removed after so many cycles, no fuel tanks are within the burst axis of disks, and the flight ceiling of airliners is dictated by the fact that you can get holes and the cabin can (at >1e-9/flight hour) rapidly depressurize.

The comment you are replying to is a reference to a famous comedy skit (about the whole front of an oceanliner falling off, and the official company response).

I just want to make the point that this is not normal

Yes, but still the person was for 2 minutes with their chest out of the window, held by their legs

> A report in a Hungarian publication claims, "A passenger was sucked into the window by the change in air pressure, with the 61-year-old man's head sticking out of the plane. Witnesses say his wife grabbed him, which was the reason he wasn't pulled out of the plane by the lower air pressure outside." [translation by Google]

Points for the wife!

(from https://www.pprune.org/accidents-close-calls/672872-ryanair-...)

In the olden days, if someone saved your life, you owed them a year of free service.

So this guy should be ready for a year of TOTAL housework dedication.

Lesson learned for Ryanair leadership: charge more for seats not in range of debris from uncontained turbine failures.

Seriously though, as an aviation geek, I always avoid those seats when given a choice.

Seats near the engine are loud, so two birds, one stone.

Serious question: Which seats are the ones that are in range? Just in front of the wing, or just behind it?

Aren’t seats near the window the most structurally sound due to the wing supports? They are also near the exits for a quick exit.

Good photo of the broken window in Aviation Herald: https://avherald.com/h?article=53ba2a01&opt=0

More discussion in: Airliners.net: https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1510797&...

That photo ws in the main article as well.

Extremely similar to Southwest flight 1380 which killed a person in the US after they were partially sucked out of a broken window from an engine failure.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Airlines_Flight_1380

And both were Boeing 737s ... (albeit different variants)

The Alaska Airlines flight that had a door fall off was also a Boeing 737

I was going to reply that I thought the Boeing 737 was also hands down the most popular commercial airplane model in current use, so of course it would have more high profile issues. Then I did a quick web search and apparently the Airbus A320 is actually more popular since 2025, otherwise they’re fairly close to even. Yet these things only seem to happen to Boeing.

So yeah, never mind, fair game to blame Boeing actually.

This would all be solved if the engines were out in front of the plane like podracers.

That wouldn't work because the Cg would be too far forward and the mechanical moment of pylons would be far too great. What needs to happen is proper redesign of the CFM56-7B engine cowl to contain fan, LP, and HP failures.

The CFM56 cowl redesign to prevent fan blade off uncontained failure is still unfixed. The FAA gave Boeing/CFM an unreasonable amount of time (July 31, 2028) to address the issue. This is similar to the bungled handling of MCAS.

This is one reason to always be wearing your seat belt tightly when flying.

Common, it never happened to me. /s

"Low probability very high consequence situation has never happened to me, therefore I needn't do anything." -- someone who doesn't understand expectation in probability.

They even put a "/s" at the end of their comment...

I wasn't referring to them directly, so I have plausible deniability.

Because its a Ryanair flight?

Ryanair has a pretty high safety record, they fly modern, well maintained planes because their margins are lower and they make them up in volume.

Fun fact: Ryanair owns its fleet outright, and (currently) buys all of its new planes from cash flow. Pretty unusual for a major airline.

First place to look when this sort of thing happens is pprune.org - lots of pilots on there, often with specific knowledge of the aircraft type and/or of the incident itself.

In this case: https://www.pprune.org/accidents-close-calls/672872-ryanair-...

That top reply made me laugh out loud:

“>Glad it turned out well.

>Wonder what the Ryanair social media team is going to do with this one

Ryanair introducing new additional charge to have a window.”

I wonder if Ryanair is going to charge them for being oversized to fit through their designated window.

Window seat: €12.99

They will start charging extra for getting to not sit by a window.

The entire row is at risk:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Air_Lines_Flight_1288

Window: €12.99 extra.

From https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgk65knkyzdo Media reports in Greece and Germany quoted passengers describing a loud bang followed by the window breaking and oxygen masks falling from the ceiling shortly after the Boeing 737 had taken off.

They believe the window was smashed by pieces of the jet's engine - although Ryanair has not commented on this.

Would it be strange to not have any windows on a plane? You could put thin oled panels on the wall instead. Seems like that would be more structurally sound.

I suspect you'd lose the sense of depth that helps make the plane feel less small. There's also a safety factor for situational awareness; many carriers require shades to be open for the cabin crew to figure out the safest side to evacuate on in an emergency.

You could do something with mirrors, but the safety cards reference looking out the windows before opening the emergency doors, so I bet you need at least SOME.

No, no we need more technology, more software. How about webcams and LCD panels in place of the windows?

Why fly at all? Just buy a large TV and sit in front of it. Get a ventilator to simulate wind, and a toilet freshener for a scent.

I could see this being a safety issue if there’s a problem with the wing or engine and the panels fail, so zero visibility. Its why they ask you to open the window blinds during take off and landing

It's also so that rescue personnel can see into the plane in the event it crashes.

Odd. Rescue personnel aren't typically high enough to see in through the windows.

Airplane crashes tend to be on the floor.

I like to be able to look out the window, especially when we hit rough air. Seeing the fixed external reference helps me, for whatever reason.

Presumably for the same reason looking out the windshield helps with car sickness.

There are apps that show an overlay of moving dots on your phone which help with motion sickness.

E.g. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.stormtech....

That’s built into ios now too. It helps me not get car sick so quickly when I use my phone for a minute or two at a time, but I still can’t do what I want to do, which is read in the car.

R.Y.A.N.A.I.R. — Remove Yourself And Never Ask If Refunded

£5 and we’ll drop you off at home before we land! Save the trip back from the airport.

Alternate title: Boeing 737 passenger sucked toward broken window after midair engine failure.

Or else: Ryanair Boeing 737 passenger sucked toward broken window after midair engine failure.

Boeing 737

SUCTION

On a Boeing? No way!

I thought that the speed of the air moving outside of the plane had a bigger impact on the pressure imbalance that causes someone to be "sucked out" of plane. It appears that is a false belief, the inside/outside pressure difference is from the artificial pressurization of the internal cabin. I blame a high school physics teacher for the memorable "why does a soft top convertible poof out when driving fast?" question as a preamble to explaining bernoulli for my false assumption.

I learned about the artificial pressurization not too long ago. But until I read your comment, I assumed that in a case like that, the inside and outside pressures would balance shortly and the sucking would cease. Now it occurred to me that maybe the pressurization system will continue to try to compensate pressure in a situation where pressure can´t be stabilized due to a broken window, which would cause the sucking to go on. Not sure if that would be the case. Anyone knows what happens?

I believe standard protocol is for the pilot to reduce altitude until they are at a pressure that is fine to be at (<10k feet). Then they can make an emergency landing plan (or burn off fuel as in this case)

He was pushed, not sucked. Pressure never sucks.

edit: Never mind me. I think I was wrong about this.

Colloquially speaking, it sucks. It’s like saying vacuum cleaners technically blow. It might be true but everybody knows it as sucking.

Counterpoint: peer pressure.

Checkmate, science!

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