A woman has revealed the terrifying moment she watched her husband being sucked halfway out of a plane after a cabin window shattered in mid-air.Passengers aboard a Ryanair plane bound for Germany reportedly had to pull the 61-year-old man back inside the aircraft after he was partially sucked out in horrifying scenes shortly after takeoff from Thessaloniki, Greece, on Friday.Svetlana Grković said she instinctively grabbed her husband Ljubiša Karović’s legs as explosive decompression pulled him through the shattered window.“I thought: ‘If we die, we die together’,” she told Serbian outlet Nova.“It was horrible.”Witnesses have described seeing the man’s head and shoulders outside the Boeing 737-800 after a passenger window shattered while the plane was travelling from Thessaloniki, in Greece, to Memmingen, in Germany.The man’s legs were reportedly held down by nearby passengers before he was able to be pulled back inside.Speaking publicly for the first time since the incident, Ms Grković said the couple had been dozing in their seats when they were jolted awake by what sounded like an explosion.“It was as if a part of the engine broke off and hit the window where my husband Ljubiša was sitting. Luckily, he was strapped in,” she said.“As the window broke, decompression occurred in the cabin. The pressure pulled Ljubiša. Luckily he was strapped in, but half of his body was sticking out of the plane. I immediately reacted and grabbed his legs.”She said other passengers rushed to help hold her husband inside as the aircraft turned back towards Thessaloniki.“Some people came to my aid, I remembered one man and one woman. That man helped me a lot, me and Ljubiša,” she said.“We held Ljubiša’s legs together while the plane was returning to the airport in Thessaloniki.“I think he was Albanian, thank you very much. I didn’t remember his name, I don’t even know if he told me. I would like to meet him, to thank him personally again.”One passenger told Radio Thessaloniki a loud noise was heard not long into the flight before oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling as the cabin rapidly lost pressure.“Most of us had fallen asleep, we had closed our eyes. There was a noise, like a tyre bursting,” the woman said.“We immediately realised there had been a decompression. There were screams … for a moment I thought someone had accidentally opened the emergency door.“The masks dropped and there was a strong smell. The head and shoulders of one passenger were outside the window. Fortunately, he hadn’t taken off his seat belt.”She said passengers helped to pull him back inside.Another witness told Greek broadcaster ERT the man’s “head and shoulders were sticking out of the broken window”.Ms Grković said her husband drifted in and out of consciousness after being pulled back into the cabin.“I know that Ljubiša lost consciousness several times,” she said.“It’s important to me that he’s alive. He’s seriously injured and in shock. His hand is particularly badly injured, and he’s got burns.“His entire face was deformed and blood was pouring from his nose and mouth.“He’s not able to communicate; he doesn’t remember the whole event.”The plane was forced to return to Thessaloniki where Mr Karović was hospitalised with friction burns and other serious injuries.Greek media reported the incident occurred over North Macedonia and said the window had been shattered by debris that detached from one of the aircraft’s engines.Reuters reported two airport sources with knowledge of the incident said a piece of engine broke off and smashed the window early in the flight, causing the cabin to decompress.Video posted to social media appeared to show an uncontained engine failure on the damaged Boeing 737, with fan blades missing. Such failures occur when internal engine components break apart and breach the engine casing, sending debris flying.Ryanair said the aircraft, which departed shortly before 6am local time, “returned to Thessaloniki shortly after takeoff when a passenger window detached during the flight”.“The aircraft landed normally and the passengers returned to the terminal,” the airline said.A replacement aircraft was later provided to fly the remaining passengers to Memmingen.The European Union Aviation Safety Agency is investigating the incident alongside other aviation authorities.The incident bears similarities to a fatal 2018 accident involving a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 NG in the United States, when a broken engine fan blade shattered a cabin window and partially sucked a passenger out of the aircraft. The passenger later died from her injuries, prompting US regulators to order Boeing to redesign part of the 737 NG’s engine cowling.