This still leaves the mystery of why the pilots did not change course and avoid the storm rather than flying straight through it. From everything I've read, that's a major no-no.

When it is recovered, the cockpit voice recorder should be able to answer this crucial question. Until then, we can't tell if it was human error, equipment failure, or a combination of the two. And we can't know how to prevent a recurrence.

I'm much more interested in why the flight did not divert around the storm than in exactly what happened inside the storm. The former is within a pilot's control, but the latter can be beyond any pilot's ability to handle.