Loose_rivets;
Faraday cages, and fiber-optic's immunity, is nothing but wishful thinking.
Yes, concur, but perhaps you misperceive the intent of the metaphor of a "faraday cage" as used in this discussion. It is useful in conveying an understanding as to why 99.9% of aircraft struck by lightning are not affected. That's all that was intended I think - in lightning strikes, the aircraft is simply part of the path "on the way to electrical ground". That lightning can do the damage described may be true in terms of the energy levels contemplated but the hull losses simply aren't there.
Of far greater concern here, I think you'd agree, is the power of convective columns within the thunderstorm cell(s) and the possibility of low to poor radar returns from same. Like most who do/did this work, I've seen it once or twice and been surprised at the violence of "what wasn't supposed to be there according to the radar"...
poison;
I think looking for cause(s) in the area of electrics/lightning/emergency elect configs etc is looking in the wrong areas; the reasons for saying this have been resident in this thread for about a dozen pages when BOAC first asked the question about the #3 VHF. The ACARS and #3 VHF systems are powered by the AC1 and DC1 buses respectively; the AOM does not list the bus(es) which power the SATCOM but most assuredly SATCOM would not be powered in any abnormal electrical configuration. Only the #1 VHF is powered by the DC ESS bus in either the Emergency Electrical Config or Flight on Batteries Only.
FYI, the ACARS switches automatically from #3VHF to SATCOM when out of VHF range.
If the ACARS sent "maintenance" messages etc then obviously it was working and therefore so was the #3 VHF, ergo the electrical system was working up to the point where,
it is rumoured only, flight control/autopilot system maintenance messages, (see previous posts re the possible nature of the messages) were being sent. There is some mention here of "alternate law". Of course, it is impossible to know this at the moment until either the messages are verified and made available publicly, or the DFDR is found.
We don't know what the aircraft was doing or how it was performing after these messages were sent therefore, with present knowledge, even "intelligent" speculation is not possible from that point on and we will have to wait for other sources of facts. The DFDR/CVR will be of immense assistance. Though AF runs a FOQA program, I doubt that the QAR would have survived but we can hope.