A Malta Air Boeing 737-800 operating for Ryanair as flight FR1879 from Thessaloniki to Memmingen, Germany, returned to Thessaloniki on Friday, 10 July 2026, after an incident during its climb. The aircraft, registration 9H-QEU, was reported to be at about 20,000 feet when passengers heard a loud bang and a cabin window shattered, causing decompression.
Later accounts said an engine component struck the fuselage and damaged the window. A subsequent summary of an initial U.S. National Transportation Safety Board finding described a broken engine fan blade. That was an early investigative detail, not a final determination of the cause. The reported sequence involved engine damage and damage to the aircraft’s pressurized cabin.
A 61-year-old Serbian passenger seated beside the damaged window was reportedly pulled partly toward the opening but held back by his seat belt. His wife and other passengers helped bring him back inside. Oxygen masks deployed after the pressure loss. The passenger sustained a neck injury and abrasions, while a pregnant passenger was examined as a precaution. Both were reported to be stable.
The aircraft landed safely back in Thessaloniki. Ryanair passengers were later transferred toward Memmingen on another flight, while the damaged aircraft was taken out of normal service pending examination. Those operational steps did not, by themselves, establish the technical cause of the incident.
During cabin decompression, the pressure inside the aircraft is higher than the surrounding air pressure, so air flows toward the damaged area. Oxygen masks provide an emergency oxygen supply while the crew responds to the pressure loss. Reports of mask deployment and airflow toward the opening are consistent with the decompression described in this incident, although they do not specify which part of the window assembly or surrounding fuselage was damaged first.
