Good to see another aviation minded person here myk.
I'm not buying the idea that lightning knocked out the radar and then the pilot flew into a tropical storm, which brought down the plane. What doesn't make sense about that is that the radar looks forward quite far... if the radar did get knocked out, the pilot still would have known what was in front of him and should have been flying around systems, which would have given him enough time to send out a communication that he was having problems. There is no way the radar got knocked out and immediately the plane broke apart which prevented the pilot from radioing in a mayday or pan.
As well, it's unlikely a lightning strike brought down the plane in a hurry. There are a lot of things not making sense with all the media reports and are starting to contradict each other.
My personal take on it... I have no clue. If the report of the plane sending the automatic report that the cabin lost pressure is true... then I'm guessing they encountered exteme turbulence combined with wind shear/updraft and broke apart. Also possible that they flew through severe hail, but again the wx radar would have had to be down for a while, and how come they didn't report it?
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