*

Flight attendants feared passengers were sucked out after

panel

blowout at 16,000 feet

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NTSB reviewing 737 manufacturing, FAA oversight to prevent

future incidents

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Jan. 5 incident caused financial and reputational crisis

for

Boeing ( BA )

By Allison Lampert

Aug 6 (Reuters) - 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.

"I said there is a hole in the plane, in the back of the

plane and I'm sure we've lost passengers," said one flight

attendant with about 20 years of experience, after spotting the

hole in the plane and five empty seats.

The attendant was worried about an unaccompanied child

toward the plane's rear. "All I could think of was that he was

sitting there and he was too small to reach the mask and was

probably really scared."

The NTSB is reviewing 737 manufacturing and inspections and

oversight by the Federal Aviation Administration with a goal of

making recommendations to prevent a repeat in the future. The

incident has morphed into a full-blown financial and

reputational crisis for manufacturer Boeing ( BA ).

Flight attendants who were not authorized to speak publicly

immediately after the accident described a loud bang, whooshing

air and for one, tangled oxygen masks.

"I think I was able to (blurt) out, 'I think we have a hole

and we might've lost passengers.' And then it seemed like I just

lost contact, I tried calling back, tried speaking loudly into

the phone, I couldn't hear anything," said a second flight

attendant, with almost a decade of experience.

"Probably the scariest thing was I didn't have exact

communication with my flight deck and at first I didn't know if

the decompression was in the front, if we have pilots, and not

being able to fully communicate with the back," the flight

attendant said.

The flight attendants both described damage to the plane and

injured passengers, including one teen without a shirt on who

had a red face and neck. One chair was completely stripped of

the leather cover, fabric stuffing, upholstery and head rest

tray table with the force of the decompression.

The second flight attendant said eventually pilots informed

them that they were going to land, "so I knew that we were going

to be okay."