Is turbulence dangerous? and what is the worse case scenario
Do pilots ever get frightened by it?
Is turbulence dangerous...it can be. Many things can be dangerous. Driving to buy groceries on a snowy day, for example. That can be dangerous. What does one do when the roads are slick and it's dangerous to drive? One slows down. We do the same thing in an airplane. We have speeds at which we can pass safely through turbulence.
Some years ago I was involved in a retardant drop on a wildfire southeast of Albuquerque, New Mexico (USA). We were on the lee side of a mountain range with some strong winds. Mountains produce strong turbulence. The turbulence on this drop was severe to extreme; it was bad enough that our vision was blurred from the violence. Our run-in was at low level, and due to terrain, downwind. We would likely have elected to go sit it out until the winds died down, but a very fast moving wildfire was about to overtake a community, and the retardant was badly needed on scene.
In our sister ship, following behind us, was an identical crew, consisting of captain, copilot, and flight engineer. The flight engineer was sitting on the forward edge of his seat, working the power levers...much like the gas pedal on your car. He wasn't able to wear his seat belt because he had to lean so far forward to operate the power levers during the drop. As they came off the drop, the captain called for power, and the power didn't increase. He glanced down at the power levers to find that there were no hands on them, and then glanced back at the flight engineer's seat to find the FE was gone.
The turbulence had thrown the FE out of his seat, against the overheat panel, and then back. On the way down he missed his seat. He was then thrown upward against the ceiling of the flight deck, narrowly missing the open overhead hatch. On the way down he missed the flight deck, hitting the stairs that lead into the cargo bay (C-130). He wrapped his arms around the legs of the first sling seat at the bottom of the stairs and held on.
I roomed with him that night in Albuquerque. He was sore, bruised. He looked like he'd been in a gang fight. None too happy.
What's the worse-case scneario with turbulence? The aircraft can break up.
Will that happen with you on board? No.
The situations in which you fly on an airliner are very different. The situation I just described was severe and extreme turbulence; we spent much of our time flying in those kind of conditions. In an airliner operation, you don't. In fact, seldom is anything more than "light chop" experienced. It's a little disconcerting when sitting in the passenger section of the airplane...but it's not dangerous in the least.
In daily airline operations, what we see as a "rough ride" isn't remotely close to turbulence that presents any kind of hazard. We still take it very seriously, though. Passenger comfort comes into play long before turbulence becomes dangerous...so we're passing messages back and forth in flight between aircraft and with air traffic control, looking for reports of the best ride, best altitude, etc.
Most of the time when you're in cruise in an airliner and you experience turbulence, what you're feeling is air rubbing on air. A current of air, much like a current of water, is moving next to faster or slower air...or air moving in a different direction. Where currents of air moving in different directions meet, a boundary of turbulence sometimes develops. It's a little like the swirling or eddy's you see in a stream, and the result is very much the same as if you were to ride down the stream on a raft or small boat. The ripples and bumps you might feel on the raft are akin to what you experience in the airplane. You can feel them, but they're not dangerous. If you think about what's going on, it's nothing more than a very sturdy airplane moving through air.
I described a worse-case scenario above. I realize you're looking for comfort and solace, and a worse-case scenario isn't it. However, it's honest...yes, turbulence can do bad things. No, you won't be exposed to the kind of turbulence that can do bad things. Hopefully that's the comforting part. There's dangerous turbulence, and then there's uncomfortable turbulence. Uncomfortable turbulence for most airline operations is any turbulence at all...we really do try hard to avoid it...but we're operating in the atmosphere, and it's a turbulent place.
Another way to think about it is riding on a car along a rough road. On a washboard dirt road, one might feel like the bumps and jolts are going to take the car apart. If one isn't careful, I suppose that's possible in theory. But the car is taking hard bumps from solid objects, over and over. In the air, it's a different story. There aren't any hard bumps; it's all air. Some bumps may feel hard, but all that's out there is air. Air isn't hard. The airplane has inertia and mass; it passes through the air and leaves it behind, much like turbulence.
When I was a teenager, I began spraying crops. We refer to it as aerial application, or crop dusting; using an airplane to dispense agricultural chemicals. I was young, and to keep me in line my employer had me fly formation between two experienced pilots. Me in trail of my boss, and another pilot in trail of me. We flew very close to each other. At each end of the field we would pull up and make a steep turn to return to the same field, going the other way. In that turn, sometimes I would catch the wake of the airplane ahead. The wake around the wingtip is referred to as a wingtip vortice; it's swirling air that can have the effect of moving an airplane sideways, or rolling it. A few times I found this wake in the steep turn, and even though I applied full controls to stop the roll, it pitched me over anyway. This was very disconcerting; we were only 75 to 150' above the ground in the turn to start with.
I expressed my concerns to my boss, a man who had been in the business for many years. Quite frankly, it was making me very nervous. He used two model airplanes to teach formation techniques, and picking up those same model airplanes, he proceded to show me that the airplane had inertia. Even if I flew into a vacum, he said, where there was no more lift and no more support for the airplane (a condition that doesn't really exist, of course)...the airplane still had mass and inertia. It would keep on moving forward until it came to "good air" again.
Sure, bumps occured. But the airplane didn't stop flying because of them. It passed right through, carried there by inertia that meant no matter what the airplane might encounter, it would still be there and flying a moment later when that burble of air was long gone. Just as it is in your airliner. Those aeronautical swirls and eddys that make up turbulence are under the wing for a fraction of a second and gone...the wing doesn't really care, and the airplane keeps on flying all the same. It's just air.
Does it make crews concerned? I don't care for turbulence. I don't like to be uncomfortable any more than you do. I look for places where there is little or no turbulence, and where it's safest to fly. Where it's most comfortable. I slow the airplane down in turbulence for both safety and comfort, and always respect the aircraft limitations by a wide, and healthy margin. Whomever is piloting your airplane on a given day does the same thing.
Take a deep breath. Get some air flowing over you. Look out at a distant point instead of focusing inside the airplane, if you can. Think of something that makes you feel better. Slowly let out that deep breath. Then do it again. The airplane encountered turbulence long before you boarded, and it will long after you leave. Enjoy your stay. You're safe.