The wife of a man who was almost kicked off a Ryanair plane has told of his ordeal.

“Half of his body was stuck inside the plane,” said a woman who held her husband by the legs as he nearly jumped out of the Ryanair cabin window on Friday.

Svetlana Grkovic told Greek public broadcaster ERT that she was “up to her chest outside” for two minutes as she traveled with her husband, Lujubisa Karovic, from Thessaloniki, Greece, to Memmingen, Germany.

“I immediately reacted and grabbed his legs: I thought, ‘If we die, we will die together,'” Grekovic told the Serbian Nova Gazeta newspaper.

Grekovic said she was able to get her husband — who passed out three times — back inside with the help of two other passengers.

Grekovic said the plane’s engine appeared to have partially broken off, shattering the window next to her husband’s and creating a depression in the cabin. Other passengers also reported hearing what sounded like an explosion.

A technical consultant appointed by the family said the incident began with the plane’s right engine failure, which caused debris to strike and shatter the cabin window before cabin pressure was quickly lost. That assessment was not confirmed by investigators.

Passengers previously told local media that Karovic was holding onto his seat belt, helping those on board to hold it in while his head and shoulders were outside.

Svetlana Grikovic, her 61-year-old husband, said: “They are seriously injured and in shock.”

“It’s very important to me that he’s alive… his hand is especially badly injured, and it’s burned. He can’t communicate, he doesn’t remember the whole incident,” she said.

Ryanair’s flight had been in the air for about 10 minutes, monitoring data, when it suddenly plummeted 9,000ft (2,700m).

In a statement, the Ryanair flight from Thessaloniki to Memmingen on Friday morning returned “shortly after take-off when a passenger window was smashed in flight”.

Irish Budget Airlines said: “The aircraft landed normally and passengers returned to the terminal. One passenger requested medical assistance on the ground in Thessaloniki.”