There are actually three different types of microbursts - wet, dry, and hybrid. Microbursts concentrate intense winds dropped from the sky, straight down, covering an area about 2.5 miles or less in diameter. They can produce wind speeds up to 150 miles per hour and can cause significant damage.
Yes, most people don't know about microbursts and don't have much of a reason to but pilots do.
Just like the image here depicts, they can be hell to fly through. In this scenario, the plan is traveling toward the microburst and encountering the lateral (head) wind and with their flaps on will experience a sudden lifting. If they compensate for it to try to maintain their glide slope to the runway, and then fly into the downdraft, they will not only be driven downward but they will already have been trying to reduce altitude and get slammed into the ground.
I believe something like this happened several times and many airports have radar that specifically look for this kind of turbulent airflow