A fan blade inside the right engine of a Ryanair Boeing 737-800 broke apart shortly after takeoff from Thessaloniki, Greece on July 10, sending fragments into the aircraft's fuselage and shattering a cabin window. A 61-year-old passenger seated in row 11 ended up partially through the opening before other passengers seized him and pulled him back inside.
The National Transportation Safety Board released a preliminary report Thursday, Aug. 13, detailing the sequence of events. Greece transferred jurisdiction over the investigation to the U.S. agency under international aviation protocols.
The blade's failure sent pieces of the engine outward, breaking the window and damaging the fuselage at several other points along the aircraft's exterior. Flight attendants reported hearing and feeling intense vibration and saw what appeared to be smoke or fog spreading through the cabin before oxygen masks descended automatically from the overhead compartments.
One flight attendant, moving through the cabin after the masks deployed, found several passengers on their feet and calling for help. The man in the row 11 window seat was lodged in the damaged opening. Fellow passengers pulled him back into the aircraft.
The 61-year-old man sustained neck and shoulder injuries along with friction burns. He was moved to row 12, where a doctor traveling aboard treated him. Other passengers retrieved a metal box from the flight attendants' station and used it to cover the broken window opening while the aircraft returned to land.
Investigators found bird remains inside the engine, pointing to a probable bird strike during or immediately after takeoff from Thessaloniki. The NTSB said in its preliminary report that the bird strike has not been confirmed as the cause of the blade fracture—that determination remains part of the ongoing investigation.
Short videos recorded inside the aircraft and shared by Radio Thessaloniki showed the chaotic scene inside the cabin during and after the event, including the damaged window and the fog that briefly filled the cabin.
The Boeing 737-800 is a widely operated narrow-body aircraft, distinct from the 737 MAX family that faced worldwide scrutiny following fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019. The 737-800 has been in commercial service since 1998 and makes up the bulk of Ryanair's fleet, one of the largest 737-800 operators of any airline in the world.
Fan blade fractures, known in aviation as uncontained engine failures when debris exits the engine casing, are among the more serious categories of in-flight mechanical events. Regulatory standards require engines to contain blade failures internally; when fragments escape the nacelle and strike the fuselage, investigators treat the incident as a priority safety matter. The NTSB's preliminary report is the first formal document in what will be a longer investigation; a final report with probable cause will follow.
The NTSB is conducting the investigation under the framework of the Convention on International Civil Aviation, which assigns investigation responsibility to the state of manufacture or registry in cases where the country of occurrence requests assistance or transfers authority. Greece exercised that option, handing the case to U.S. investigators.
