Actman,
If the Spanish newspaper account is correct, an A340 (very similar plane) flew on the same track a few miles behind and a 747-400 flew 30 minutes prior. They were avoiding the darkest clouds. This appears to be standard procedure this time of year.
Questions I have:
1) Why would AF447 not communicate with the Iberia plane and air traffic control?
2) Why no Mayday or other communication?
3) Why would they fly right into a storm when other traffic that night was flying around the storms?
I believe weather was the ultimate factor, but what lead to the lack of communication and the decision (if intentional) to fly into the terrible storms? It is like a car that crashes into a tree. Yes the tree did the damage, bu what lead to the trajectory toward the tree?
I realize this is pure, and probably misinformed, speculation at this point.
Both aircraft (A340 and B744) are much larger airplanes. While the A340 is
similar to the A330, it is much larger and has two more engines. Larger airplanes can withstand more turbulence. Neither aircraft reported any major weather conditions to ATC and the Air France crew may have thought that the weather ahead wasn't too bad. It is possible that the onboard weather radar did not depict weather that was bad enough to warrant a deviation. And if that was the case, it is possible that the weather conditions diminished rapidly.
The Air France crew may not have been able to communicate with the Iberia flight. That flight may have been on a different frequency. Also, since it is controlled airspace, aircraft do not typically talk to each other. On the oceanic flights, it is a bit more common than a typical domestic flight, but not something that is commonplace.
There was no mayday because it is not the crew's first responsibility to talk to ATC. ATC does not fly the plane. If they got caught in bad weather in a hurry, their first priority is to control the airplane, not contact ATC. The common rule is "aviate, navigate, communicate." That means, fly the plane, then figure out where you are or if you know, where you need to go, then talk. From the sounds of it, and as I had mentioned in my prior post, things happened in a hurry and they may not have been able to communicate because their hands were already full. Also, if the electrical systems failed early on, then they may not have been able to communicate at all. We just don't know that information right now.
And for your last question, again we don't know. Those other aircraft did not report bad weather conditions that are beyond "normal" for that region. While they did deviate to go around some storms, perhaps their on board weather radar saw something different (maybe one end of the storm was more severe than the other). They weren't going around the "darkest clouds" they were going around a storm that didn't look so great from their perspective. Cloud color has nothing to do with severity. And again, the Air France flight may not have been aware of the other two aircraft in the area, and they may have been on a different frequency. The crew isn't concerned with the other aircraft flying in the same path as they as long as they're not going to hit each other. We just don't know if those two craft were on the same frequency or not. And the Iberia flight may have passed through that storm before it got intense. Those tropical storms can get intense in a real big hurry and with no weather radar coverage in the middle of the ocean, we don't know how intense those storms really were.
Again, I think we're looking at a combination of bad weather conditions, which led up to some technical malfunctions, then a catastrophic event occurred.
And to answer another question by another poster, given certain conditions, yes an aircraft could break apart. Those conditions are usually very very extreme and aircraft do not fly into those conditions intentionally. A few bumps or even moderate turbulence isn't going to affect a commercial airliner in a fashion where the aircraft is just going to fall apart. They are built to withstand extreme loads before they fail. And if you did find yourself in extreme turbulence, you would probably be knocked unconscious before you knew what happened. Around the Equator is a region known as the ITCZ (Inter-tropical convergence zone). This is where airmasses from the Northern and Southern Hemispheres collide and showers and thunderstorms develop. This is common, but extreme turbulence conditions don't usually occur frequently and again, aircraft avoid severe and extreme turbulence as much as possible. So I wouldn't freak out on your next flight to South America when you feel a bump or two. If aircraft flew through nasty turbulence frequently, we would be hearing about aircraft accidents weekly.