Alaska Airlines flight attendants feared passengers had been sucked out of the plane in the chaos following the Jan. 5 mid-air panel blowout on a Boeing 737 MAX 9 jet, according to harrowing testimony released by safety experts on Tuesday.
The comments gathered from interviews with attendants—who were not named—were among thousands of pages of evidence made public ahead of a two-day hearing that began earlier on Tuesday by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board about the incident. They provide dramatic accounts of the cabin crew’s efforts to help passengers and communicate with pilots when the panel blew off the jet at 16,000 feet after taking off from Portland, Oregon.
