CNN CNN Newsroom With Carol Costello December 29, 2014 14:09:00
The storm or they may have decided to climb regardless of clearance which would be extremely unusual. in terms of the radar plot here the speed given i believe would be the ground speed and not air speed, indicated air speed to control the flight of the air control. one would expect to have a significant difference in speed between the indicated and ground speed. that radar in itself is not entirely conclusive. i believe there were winds of some 40 knots at that altitude. that has to be taken into account too. it is rather difficult to make a decision. as you get to higher altitude air is thin...
Source: archive.org