On a Dutch news site here ( Inmiddels 77 lichamen uit ) the following claim is made (translated into English):
Quote:
The pilots wanted, thus becomes clear from the 'current conclusions' from the investigation into the two black boxes of the plane, to fly over a lightning storm, but were prevented from this because it wasn't possible due to the temperature to fly to that height.
Reading this kind of surprised me, as I didn't have the impression that they wanted to fly over the storm, but it would explain why they suddenly went into this steep climb.
31st May 2011 07:50
Elledan, the Dutch news site is wrong. To be sure of climbing over an ITCZ "lightning storm," the AF flight crew would have to have assumed they might well have to climb as high as 55,000 feet or so, and to do that, they'd have needed the Space Shuttle, not an Airbus. Their sudden climb to 380 had nothing to do with any attempt to top a thunderstorm.