Crash site known for massive storms

The plane's crew may have tried to navigate through the storms using onboard radar, threading through holes in the weather, but then found themselves trapped, unable to get around or over the clouds that towered up to 50,000 feet, experts said. A Brazilian Air Force spokesman has said the plane's debris field in the ocean may suggest the pilot did indeed try to return, because parts of the plane were found just outside the flight's path, near where the last signal was emitted before it disappeared. Searchers were finding debris smack in the middle of a region known to scientists as the Intertropical Convergence Zone, a nearly continuous band of colliding weather systems near the equator. Weather reports from the time indicate massive thunderstorms were developing in the area over a 400-mile-long route directly along the flight's path on Sunday night. The jet was carrying 228 people from Rio de Janeiro to Paris when it crashed into the sea between Brazil and Africa near the equator. Basically, this zone, which experts refer to as the ITCZ, is a stormy weather band that wraps some 25,000 miles around the world, generally hugging the equator. Like an ocean current, it's fluid in its movements as the seasons change, deviating several degrees north and south. Brazilian officials said the last electronic message from the plane came in at 10:14 pm EDT, indicating loss of air pressure and electrical failure. Accuweather reported that weather data from the region showed towering thunderheads were sending updrafts of up to 100 mph into the jet's flight path at that time. Mazzone said if the Air France pilot found himself trapped amid these storms, it could have been catastrophic, with pummeling updrafts sucking the plane up and down, while being battered by huge hail. Thousands of flights every year travel across this stormy equatorial region worldwide without incident. Anytime a flight goes from Australia, for instance, to Los Angeles, it crosses into the zone. "It's something that's done every day," Burch said. "For the most part, a pilot is not going to fly right into a thunderstorm ... They know these conditions are always there," Burch added. "What happened Sunday night, though, I just can't say"; Kazinform cites China Daily. See www.chinadaily.com.cn for full version.