Then, they were “slamming straight down on the armrests, hitting their backs, hitting their heads on something”, he said.
The plane dropped about 6,000ft (1.8km) within four minutes.
“Everything happened really in a flash,” he said, adding that people immediately started gasping and screaming.
When the turbulence subsided, there was an announcement to acknowledge what had happened and a call for medical professionals who could volunteer to check on the passengers. A couple of people answered the call and made some rounds to provide some basic triage, Mr Dzafran said.
“The passengers also were told to sit down and hang tight but at the same time, amid all this chaos and confusion, I felt … that people, you know, couldn’t really absorb what was to be prioritised, what was happening,” he said.
People who were not hurt were walking around looking for their phones, which had been ripped out of their hands due to the force of the turbulence, he added. They were urgently looking for a way to get in touch with their loved ones.
Mr Dzafran eventually found his phone as well.
