'Everything went deathly silent': Permanently injured passenger recalls terrifying Singapore Airlines flight

Jordan was a high school dance teacher and performer in Adelaide, but now she's paralysed from the chest down.

She's spent the past four months being winched in and out of bed in hospital, where she's likely to remain until Christmas.

READ MORE: Damning evidence raises questions about deadly Singapore Airlines flight

And it's all the result of something millions of us do every single day: flying in a commercial aircraft.

Still, incredibly, she's approaching each daily challenge with inspiring grace.

"Life sometimes throws those challenges at you," she told 60 Minutes, in her first television interview since the Singapore Airlines flight struck turbulence above Myanmar on May 21.

"I just have to look at the positives."

The seatbelt light had been on for just eight seconds when flight SQ321 suddenly plummeted, turning every passenger not buckled up into human projectiles.

Such was the lack of warning, breakfast was being served, and Jordan had been returning to her seat after getting up to go to the bathroom.

She was thrust into an overhead luggage door, snapping her spine.

"I'd had 10 hours of sitting in my seat with my seatbelt on," Jordan said.

"And it was in that moment that I just chose to get up.

"I just managed to sit back down in my seat, and I grabbed hold of my seatbelt. And from that moment, it felt like it wasn't me.

"I was suspended in the air and from that moment, everything went deathly silent."

Seconds later - at speed and under immense forces - the plane shot back up, sending the passengers suspended in the air back down onto seats and into the aisle.

Jordan was flying home from a holiday in the UK with her long-time partner, Keith Davis.

"When I was actually on the ground, in the aisle, all I recall is seeing Keith looking at me with blood running down his face," Jordan said.

"And then I remember hearing a man ask me 'can you feel your legs?'

She couldn't.

Davis was also flung into the ceiling, but - to his torment - after swapping seats with Jordan, his head went straight through the panel above, lessening his injuries.

"Kerry's the one that should have gone straight up and down through the vents," he said.

"That was the difference, that's the difference. I went through all those vents and it just busted up to bits, and [Kerry] went smack into the bloody luggage door.

"That impact was immense. Absolutely immense

Davis and Jordan are now fighting for adequate compensation from Singapore Airlines.

So far, the carrier has given them only $75,000.

It's a pittance, considering the lifetime of care Jordan will now need as a tetraplegic.

Her and Davis' two storey-home, built on the side of a hill in Adelaide's south, is also now hopelessly inadequate for Jordan's needs.

But such is their nature, that even in the midst of despair, the couple has found hope.

Before the fateful flight, Jordan had begun a dream job teaching at Adelaide's world-renowned Restless Dance Theatre - a company that caters for dancers with, or without, a disability.

For Jordan, the special place has now taken on even greater meaning.

"It's not about people with disabilities, it's about people with different abilities. And I guess now, I can think about me," she said.

It's at Restless that Jordan hopes to one day teach again.

"I still feel like I've got so much more to offer," she said.

"And I'm really looking forward to that."

Watch the full episode of 60 Minutes on 9Now.