Pilot ‘sucked halfway out’ of cockpit window mid-flight

A passenger plane was forced to make an emergency landing yesterday after a co-pilot was partially sucked out of the aircraft when a cockpit window broke at 32,000ft.

Captain Liu Chuanjian told Chinese media that the plane - en route from Chongqing in southwestern China to the Tibetan capital of Lhasa - had just reached a cruising altitude of 32,000ft when the cockpit’s right window broke, creating a “deafening sound”.

The explosive decompression in the cockpit caused a rapid drop in temperature and sucked the co-pilot partially out of the window, according to Liu.

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“There was no warning sign. Suddenly the windshield just cracked and made a loud bang. The next thing I know my co-pilot had been sucked halfway out of the window,” he said.

“Everything in the cockpit was floating in the air. Most of the equipment malfunctioned and I couldn’t hear the radio. The plane was shaking so hard I could not read the gauges.”

The co-pilot, who was wearing a seatbelt, was pulled back in by his fellow crew members, and suffered only scratches and a sprained wrist, the Civil Aviation Administration of China confirmed. One other cabin crew member was injured during the emergency landing, in Chengdu, Sichuan province, although no further details were given.

Liu was hailed as a hero on social media after being forced to land the Airbus A319 manually following the decompression, The Independent reports.

An unnamed passenger on the plane, which was carrying a total of 128 people, told the Chinese state-owned Xinhua News Agency: “The crew were serving us breakfast when the aircraft began to shake.

We didn’t know what was going on and we panicked.

“Then the oxygen masks dropped... We experienced a few seconds of free fall before it stabilised again.

“I’m still nervous. I don’t dare to take an aeroplane anymore. But I’m also happy I had a narrow escape.”

The incident comes a month after banking executive Jennifer Riordan, 43, was killed when she was partially sucked out of a plane window on Southwest Airlines Flight 1380 from New York City to Dallas. The port engine on the Boeing 737 disintegrated in mid-air, puncturing the skin of the aircraft.