Cathay Pacific Flight 156 hit severe turbulence about two hours before landing in Hong Kong on Wednesday, jolting the jet during its descent and injuring 10 people on board. The cabin crew was serving meals when the aircraft suddenly lost altitude for roughly two seconds.

Six cabin staff members and four passengers were hurt in the episode, and Cathay Pacific said the injuries were minor. After the plane touched down in Hong Kong, paramedics evaluated everyone who had been injured and eight people were taken to nearby hospitals for further treatment.

One passenger described the drop as feeling like “a drop tower ride,” while another said, “I thought I was going to die in a plane crash.” Those accounts captured the violence of a brief event that turned a routine descent into a frightening emergency.

Turbulence is common in air travel and can be triggered by thunderstorms, frontal systems or jet streams, but sudden severe turbulence of this scale is rare and is often linked to clear-air turbulence. Modern aircraft are also fitted with systems designed to detect turbulence ahead of time and warn pilots, which is why incidents like this stand out when they break through the normal protections of a commercial flight.

The immediate question now is not whether the airline can explain the jolting descent, but whether anyone will face a longer recovery after what was described as minor injuries. For the passengers and crew aboard Flight 156, the answer was already clear by the time the aircraft rolled to a stop in Hong Kong: the flight had landed, but the shock of those two seconds did not end there.