Lemurian,
The BEA report states that some crew had many problems to contact Dakar ATC via the HF (on 5565 KHz, 6535 KHz, and all the HF frequencies available in the onboard documentation.). At 02:01Z, it was the 3rd and last connection to the Dakar ADS-C to be attempted by the AF 447 crew: would it be possible that these repeated com. attempts may have diverted the PNF from a more carefull met analysis with different weather radar settings approaching the MSC ?
Jeff
PS) is there an explanation for the 3 Atlantico requests (for TASIL estimates) that remained unanswered by the AF 447 at 01:36Z ?