"I remember it very vividly:one of the stewardesses was walking up with the trolley when the big drop hit and she went flying and the cart went up in the air and there[was] coffee all over the ceiling,"he said.
"I just saw everyone in the cabin that wasn't wearing a seatbelt -[they] basically flew up into the air and smacked the roof. It was horrifying - absolutely violent."
As many as 37 people on board,including passengers and flight crew members,were injured when flight AC33 encountered"sudden turbulence"at 36,000 feet,two hours past Hawaii,Air Canada said.
Hickey said that,in the minute before the turbulence,which caused panels and oxygen masks to drop,the plane was trembling,but there was otherwise no indication of the chaos that was to come.
"You don't really have any perception of how far you're dropping in the air but I would've said it could've been up to just a 50-metre straight drop in the air pocket,"he said.
"It was just this scene from a horror movie inside an airplane and we're still flying and no one really knew what was happening.