The wife of a man who was almost sucked headfirst out of a mid-air cabin window on a Ryanair plane has described her fear over the incident.

“He was outside maybe two or three minutes,” she said, before adding “the lady sitting next to him and I tried to push him in.”

Tracking data shows that the plane was in the air for about 10 minutes when it abruptly descended 9,000 feet (2,700 m), and passengers told local media that they heard “some kind of explosion.”

A Greek hospital official said he had treated a 61-year-old Serbian national for friction burns.

In a statement, Ryanair said its Friday morning flight from the Greek city of Thessaloniki to Memmingen in Germany returned “shortly after take-off when a passenger window became dislodged during the flight.”