BOAC, I don't believe they knowingly and purposefully flew into a meso-convective complex with cells that were overshooting to FL 520 or 560.
I do have questions, suspicions if you will, about how aware they were of the weather they were encountering. I do wonder whether and why their perceptions of the outside environment were so different from the flights following that they continued on, and the other flights chose to avoid. Clearly, the actions of the crew of AF459 following, with the same plane model, same radar, presumably the same AF training and procedures, on encountering the amas between ORARO and TASIL were dramatically different. How to explain or reconcile the actions of the two AF flight crews?