Was in 747-100 cargo from syd-hkg same time frame nothing was painting on radar I went back to galley to get coffee as I came back up the captain said to strap in we hit a cell rising fast went from fl33 to fl39 in seconds and wild airspeed swings then back down to fl33 all three of us looked at each other and said what the hell was that?
I once hit a "dry" cell in the Caribbean in a 757 at FL350. It was night time...radar was on max manual gain tilted down -2, nothing ahead or in immediate vicinity, some stuff on either side about 80 miles abeam. Suddenly flew into a cell that caused severe turbulence for 10 seconds, over speed, and +/-500ft. Once out of it immediately ascertained everyone was ok and notified atc. Not 30 seconds later Speedbird (BA) 747 hit the same type of stuff well off to our right. There were dry cells all over the Caribbean that night. They do not show up on radar no matter how much gain (sensitivity) you have it on: not enough moisture to show on radar but plenty of punch!
Yep, you tell the geniuses back at the training building these sea stories (now, this is no s**t...) and they act like you are making it up. They start talking about tilt angle versus altitude formulas and the spheroid equivolumetric diameter of the rain drops.
Down in the WSJC FIR (it's been a while since I've flown to JKT though) you really do get some buildups, often embedded, that barely paint on the weather radar. In the goo or at night you can be flying along fat dumb and happy and boom, all hell breaks loose. Turbulence, St. Elmo's Fire, airspeed and altitude fluctuations. Then as suddenly as it began, you are back out of it in smooth air.
The sun should have been coming up when QZ 8501 lost contact. The timezones flying SUB-SIN are bass ackwards, as you go west you end up an hour later.
With all the morning traffic in the area it is not uncommon to be stuck lower than you want, especially on a relatively short sector with good altitude performance in a light airliner. With modern aircraft going high is often the most fuel efficient path even on a short route but it might not make sense from an ATC perspective.
That sound bite about 'weather can't cause an aircraft to crash' has been picked up by CNN's Richard Quest and others. It grabs attention, provokes discussion and is usually put in the context that it is the pilots' (sometimes written pilot's) reaction, or lack of reaction, to the weather that can cause the mishap. Fair enough I suppose.