There seem to be two translations of what the TAM crew saw - "flashes of light" and "flames on the ocean". The second seems more probable (if it was the AF flight and not just ITCZ lightning) since it was 30 minutes after the last transmission. And that tends to indicate the plane was still intact enough to be holding fuel in liquid form when it reached the surface.
Fuel dissipated in an aerosol at altitude would not burn in pools on the water.
In fact (well, OK, in speculation) it might even mean the plane was somewhat under control all the way down, and just had disastrous luck with a ditching attempt.
I'm more sanguine now about the odds of finding the CVR and FDR, between the TAM sighting, the Senegalese statement, and the French experience at undersea work.
I would not assume that a lightning strike directly destroyed this craft, but can easily see scenarios where it left them blind and/or disabled and easy prey for a subsequent event - TS penetration or control/instrument failures.
Speculation is what humans do - try to solve mysteries on insufficient data. With time the data become firmer and the speculation more narrowly focused - until eventually someone can write a report. Which, absent survivors, is still sometimes only a best guess as to exactly what happened.
Last edited by pattern_is_full; 2nd Jun 2009 at 04:06.