CNN Wolf January 1, 2015 18:49:00
Storms and why couldn't they this plane, fly near water to try to land? >> well in that region, the closer you go to the equator and don't forget on the southern hemisphere it's their summer now and our winter up here in the north so the more heat the more vertical development you get with clouds or the thunder clouds, thunderstorms if you will. so those are going up and those were at 55,000 feet. that far exceeds the ceiling capability of this specific aircraft, and the pilot flying knows that so it would not be in his best interest to try to climb past that and he knows that. so they were ma...
Source: archive.org