A passenger was reportedly almost sucked out of the cabin window mid-air on a Ryanair-owned plane.

Witnesses told local media that the man, said to be a Serbian national in his 60s, was left dangling with his head out of the window up to his shoulders for several minutes, before other passengers on the Malta Air flight managed to get him back inside.

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.”

It continues: “The plane landed normally and the passengers returned to the terminal. One passenger requested and received medical assistance on the ground in Thessaloniki.”

The Irish low-cost airline added that “a replacement plane was organized a few hours later to take passengers to Memmingen.”

Media in Greece and Germany cited passengers describing a loud bang followed by a window breaking and oxygen masks falling from the ceiling shortly after the Boeing 737 took off.

They believe the window was broken by pieces of the plane’s engine, although Ryanair has not commented on the matter.

“We immediately realized that there had been a decompression. There were screams… for a moment I thought someone had accidentally opened the emergency door,” Christina, a fellow passenger, told Radio Thessaloniki.

“The masks fell off and there was a strong smell. A passenger’s head and shoulders were outside the window. Fortunately, he had not removed his seat belt.”

The plane, believed to be 18 years old, was operated by Ryanair subsidiary Malta Air.

The Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) later told the BBC that it “is aware of the incident involving a Ryanair group aircraft, registered and operated by Malta Air, which was taking off from Thessaloniki this morning.”

“The IAA will provide any requested assistance to the aviation safety investigation authority in Greece and the Directorate of Civil Aviation in Malta, to assist in their investigation,” he said.

In 2018, a passenger died when debris from a damaged engine caused a window to break on a Southwest Airlines flight in the US, and she was partially sucked out.