Still in the game?

**Will Bain** (0:02)
Does the global gaming industry need to hit the reset button?

**Brad Smith** (0:06)
Sometimes you have to restructure a business when it's not doing well, and that was true with our Xbox business.

**Peter Moore** (0:11)
Consumers are making decisions, and so gaming has struggled across the board.

**Will Bain** (0:15)
It's World Business Report from the BBC World Service. I'm Will Bain, and today we've assembled a panel of industry experts to look at why one of global businesses' greatest success stories is under so much pressure and how the gaming industry escapes that squeeze. And we'll also be looking at how fast fashion's biggest name seems to have finally found a home to sell its shares.
Yeah, well, that's come here over the next half hour on World Business Report, but we're gonna start today with a frankly terrifying story in the world of aviation. A 61-year-old Serbian national is recovering in a Greek hospital from friction burns after almost being sucked head first out of a plane window thousands of feet in the air. Passengers have told local media the man was left hanging out the window as far as his shoulders before other passengers managed to pull him back inside. Those on board the flight from the Greek city of Thessaloniki to Germany's Memmingham have also said the window was smashed to pieces by parts of the jet's engine, although the airline, the Irish carrier Ryanair, has not commented on this so far. An investigation has been launched by multiple agencies. For more on what that investigation might be studying, we spoke to Scott Hamilton, Managing Director of the Aviation Consultants. Liam, he's got four decades in the aviation trade. He spoke to us from Chicago.

**Scott Hamilton** (1:39)
This sort of thing is extremely rare. It does happen, but it is very rare. And what we know, at least up to this point, what we think we know is that there was an uncontained engine failure and a fan blade from that rotating disc at the front of the engine separated from the engine went through the nace cell.
That's why it's called an uncontained engine failure. And some debris of some kind apparently went and hit the window of the Ryanair 737, shattered the window, and this gentleman was partially sucked out.

**Will Bain** (2:13)
How lucky is this gentleman, Scott?

**Scott Hamilton** (2:16)
Extremely lucky on two counts, really.
One, this debris could have gone into the fuselage and hit him, and who knows what the outcome would have been at that point. The second is that this happened at a low altitude. The airplane was on climb out from the airport, and the information that I read was that it happened at around 13,000 feet. There was a similar incident a number of years ago with Southwest Airlines in the United States at cruising altitude, 36,000 feet or something like that. And that lady was partially sucked out to her waist. And of course, at 36,000 feet, you just don't have any air debris. She died. This gentleman had injuries. I don't know how serious they were, but obviously, he was taken to the hospital to be checked out.

**Will Bain** (3:04)
So there's two examples, Scott. As you say, obviously, pretty rare, given the number of flights around the world. But how concerning, I guess, for major airlines everywhere, that this could be a potential vulnerability, given what you were saying, if it is indeed a part of the engine fan. So what is it that could potentially be done? And will it be something that major airlines will now be looking at around the world?

**Scott Hamilton** (3:26)
Yeah, after the Southwest Airlines incident, the Federal Aviation Administration issued an airworthiness directive requiring fixes, and I'm not familiar with the details of it, because that happened so long ago now. And it gave the airlines until 2028 to do whatever the AD required. And in this industry, other regulators, in this case, the European regulator, EASA, routinely adopts those kinds of ADs that the FAA issues. Part of the investigation will reveal just what the AD compliance with the EASA required of European airlines. But that will all be part of the investigation.

**Will Bain** (4:08)
We should say as well, it sounds like the passenger was wearing his seatbelt. Would that have mattered?

**Scott Hamilton** (4:15)
Yeah, if he hadn't had his seatbelt on, he could have been entirely sucked out of the airplane. But of course, at 13,000 feet, when you're still climbing out of a takeoff, passengers, of course, typically have their seatbelt on for a much longer time, typically until they get to cruising altitude.

**Will Bain** (4:32)
And so, you know, you've worked in the industry and with the industry for such a long time, Scott. Are there things you think people will be taking away already from this latest event?