We're not on a river but a jet in the atmosphere.
The wind could be evaluated at max +-75kts in this cas. Even if you add or remove 75kts you're always in the flight domain of the plane using my values !
Anyway think one moment. To fly a plane to must evalute the air speed. Because they were high altitude, and the 3 pitot was off, the only indicator effective at this moment was ground speed.
unless you prefer to open the window and reach out to assess !
I'm not Einstein but I hardly imagine none of the 3 pilots try to use this evident method to adjust thurst and sustain a correct FL.