Originally Posted by
Kbboca
"The aircraft" [I can't quite make out the word used, it almost sounds like they say "the wings"] then fell suddenly to 4 millimeters [yes! that's really what it says] before disappearing from the screen."
Well, I'm sorry but that's not quite right. They did say "4,000 m" (quatre mille mètres, not quatre millimètres) and there is nothing about wings.
The sentence following the heading change request (that you got perfectly right) is :
"... mais il chute rapidement à 4000 mètres d'altitude, avant de disparaître complètement des écrans radar."
That means: "... but it suddenly descended/fell to an altitude of 4,000 m, before completely disappearing from the radar display."
I don't know where they got their 8,000m from. The display clearly shows FL310 before the event.