The truth is it depends on why you are getting turbulence and the altitude. Wake turbulence (when you're following the plane in front of you too closely) is very dangerous as it comes out of nowhere and if big enough can really screw up the plane and make it uncontrollable. Your average weather-related turbulence usually isn't too much of a worry as there are a ton of planes up there reporting potential bad areas and radar is usually pretty good at finding bad cells.

The bigger concern, in my opinion, is at what altitude the turbulence occurs. Low altitude turbulence can be tricky, for obvious reasons.

Fly UA sometime and listen in on channel 9. If it starts to get bumpy, the pilots start checking with ATC for a new altitude or course deviation for a "smoother ride." ATC frequently checks with aircraft ahead of the requester to find out how it is. You hear that sort of thing all the time - "how is the ride up ahead?" The pilots have to get permission to change altitude or course, but seem to be genuinely concerned about the ride for their passengers.

JR

Crashes caused by turbulence itself are pretty rare. Most were in the 1950s and 1960s. Better construction and better understanding of flying through turbulence has helped.

A signifcant hazard, though, is loose items/people in the cabin. People have broken their necks hitting their heads on the overhead bins. If the plane experiences negative Gs, it's like being held upside down and dropped on your head.

That's why they tell you to keep your seatbelt on at all times while seated.

I was on a PIT-ORD flight a few months back that was quite bumpy and was listening to Channel 9. The pilot was on with ATC almost continuously asking for reports from other altitudes, other aircraft, etc. He seemed to be exagerating the level of chop ("we're getting beat up pretty good here") to "negotiate" a move. I think we tried everything from FL21-34 looking for smooth air. He was working it pretty hard but we never really found anything. Somtimes there's just no alternatives.

As a small aircraft pilot I really appreciate it when I feel the cockpit crew reducing power when we enter turbulance. Each aircraft has a Va or maneuvering airspeed rating at which theoretically most any gust should not exceed the rated load factor of the wing. Although there is some controversy and Va is not an absolute, slower is always better when going through the chop.

And if nothing else it at least gives me a placebo effect of calm :)

I never worry about turbulence during flight. Just as you are bound to hit a bad stretch of road on a long road trip, you are going to run into a couple bad turbulence on a trans-continental flight.

The only time I worry about turbulence is during landing. With not a whole lot of room underneath the plane, if a sudden microburst pushes the plane downwards, there is not much a pilot can do to recover. That is why I get nervous everytime the plane comes in for landing in a driving storm.

Worry about the plane going down because of it? No, not at all -- the plane and the pilots can handle a heck of a lot.

Worry about me or mine getting injured? Yes. I've seen bad scalds, bruises and goose-eggs, and even one or two broken noses. Lots of expensive clothing &/or laptops ruined, and smells that are sheer torture. While none of it is likely to kill us, it can sure ruin the trip, and who wants that?

Keep that seatbelt on whenever possible, don't eat too much dairy before you fly, and skip the coffee if the pilot says anything about possible rough air.

I worked with an ex-Boeing Engineer and we discussed turbulence on a flight to DFW once (we had really, really bad turbulence on the flight). He told me that for the normal being tossed in the sky stuff, the plane was built to such high standards that before turbulence would take the plane out of they sky through bouncing etc., the wings would be ripped off.

It was something like 5 or 6 G's of force on the wing was necessary for that to happen, a level virtually unheard of in commercial aviation. After that was never bothered by it.

(fyi I can't remember the exact G force, but much more than humans can stand is the way he phrased it)

Almost every flight I've been on has had turbulence on it, so I wouldn't be too worried about it. I've had some bad ones, but if you fly enough, you just get used to it!

Was on a CO flight from IAH-STL last summer when we hit some pretty bad turbulence. It never worries me, but this one did for some reason. The FA's were out serving beverages and just before they got to me we hit it, was kind of sudden, felt like we dropped quite a bit. She had a worried look on her face and immediately stopped service. It was too late for the row in front of me...2 of them had their beverages all over themselves.

Hello,

AFAIK, there are some kinds of turbulence: "light" (the water in the glass shakes), "moderate" (the glass can fall from the table), and "severe" (the plane can't keep it's flight level and can be for a short time out of control).

Since I've experienced once "severe turbulence" (it was on a thundersturm during the descend to EZE, when we dropped 2000ft according to the pilot), I was for a long time quite scared when the plane began to shake.

But: It is very very unlikely that a plane falls from the sky because of that. Light or moderate turbulence happen on almost every flight. And, I know it: Every airliner bears more than the human stomach!

Patrick

Va does not protect against gust loads, it protects against control deflection. See the Vng diagram. There is a separate speed for turbulence penetration speed which, in a jet, must consider both low-speed, and high-speed (Mach), stall.