The wife of a man who was nearly sucked head-first out of a cabin window in mid-air on a Ryanair plane has described her fright at the incident.

“He was out for maybe two or three minutes,” she said, before adding “the lady sitting next to him and I tried to pull him back inside”.

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

A Greek hospital official said it 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 Germany’s Memmingen returned “shortly after take-off when a passenger window dislodged in flight”.