![\"Cathay](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/4PBQ70L_copyright_image_43856.jpeg\")
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\nCathay Pacific confirmed 10 people were injured during the incident, including six cabin crew and four passengers. (File)
\nPhoto: AFP\n<\/p>\n
By Kristy Sexton-McGrath, ABC<\/p>\n
An Australian passenger onboard a Cathay Pacific flight rocked by severe turbulence says he feared he was going to die after the aircraft suddenly plunged mid-air, throwing passengers and food carts around the cabin and injuring 10 people.<\/p>\n
Flight CX156 was travelling from Brisbane to Hong Kong when the Airbus A350-900 suddenly dropped about two hours before landing.<\/p>\n
Cathay Pacific confirmed 10 people were injured during the incident – six cabin crew and four passengers.<\/p>\n
The airline said medical personnel boarded the aircraft after it landed safely in Hong Kong.<\/p>\n
Eight injured people were taken to nearby hospitals for treatment.<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/4JO2KYG_Cathay_turb2_avif.jpeg\")
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\nThe severe turbulence caused items to hit the ceiling.
\nPhoto: Facebook: A Fly Guy’s Cabin Crew\n<\/p>\n
Cairns businessman Nicholas Stevenson was travelling on the flight when the “plane just dropped”.<\/p>\n
“There were phones flying, coffees smashed into the roof, food absolutely everywhere.<\/p>\n
“People were screaming. There was a lot of people really freaking out.”<\/p>\n
He said the turbulence struck without warning as cabin crew had just begun serving breakfast on the overnight flight.<\/p>\n
“They’d turned the lights on, people were waking up and they’d started giving out meals,” he said. “There was no seatbelt sign or warning beforehand.”<\/p>\n
He said the plane plunged twice in quick succession.<\/p>\n
“The first one caught everyone completely off guard, and then probably 15 or 20 seconds later it happened again,” he said.<\/p>\n
“People who’d just managed to get back into their seats or grab onto something got thrown around again.”<\/p>\n
Stevenson said the force of the turbulence launched unsecured passengers and objects into the air.<\/p>\n
“Anyone that didn’t have their belts on hit the roof.”<\/p>\n
He said cabin crew appeared to suffer the worst injuries because they were standing in the aisles with heavy service carts when the aircraft dropped.<\/p>\n
“The staff got hit pretty badly because not only were they thrown but the food carts went flying into them as well.”<\/p>\n
Call for doctors<\/p>\n
He said passengers only realised the seriousness of the situation after calls went out across the cabin asking whether any doctors were on board.<\/p>\n
“They started making announcements asking for doctors,” he said. “That’s when we realised there were some pretty seriously injured people.”<\/p>\n
He said four doctors travelling on the flight assisted injured crew members and passengers while the aircraft continued towards Hong Kong.<\/p>\n
“There wasn’t really anywhere else to land,” he said. “They just treated people at the back of the plane while we kept flying.”<\/p>\n
Stevenson said the pilot later apologised to passengers and explained the aircraft had encountered a weather system that appeared with little warning.<\/p>\n
“The pilot said they believed it was some sort of thunder or lightning cell,” he said.<\/p>\n
“He said they didn’t really see it on the radar until the last minute because it was dark.”<\/p>\n
He said medical help was waiting on the tarmac.<\/p>\n
“When we landed, they told everyone to stay seated because the injured people had to get off first.”<\/p>\n
Despite the ordeal, Stevenson said he was physically unharmed because he had kept his seatbelt fastened.<\/p>\n
“I just remember thinking there’s not much you can do in that situation,” he said.<\/p>\n
“My parents were both in the air force and my dad always used to say if a plane’s going down there’s not really much you can do about it.”<\/p>\n
These types of incidents are usually investigated by authorities, including an analysis of flight and cockpit data.<\/p>\n
Cathay Pacific said it was co-operating fully with authorities and providing support to affected passengers and crew.<\/p>\n
– ABC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cathay Pacific confirmed 10 people were injured during the incident, including six cabin crew and four passengers. (File)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18037,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4453,99,4452,152,4454,4451,4449,4450],"class_list":["post-18036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brisbane","tag-audio","tag-brisbane","tag-current-affairs","tag-news","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}