Intertropical Convergence Zone of human errors which ultimately doomed the flight. Most aircraft flying these routes are able to avoid the larger convective cells without incident. Intertropical Convergence Zone The Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), known by sailors as the doldrums or the calms, is the area encircling Earth near the Equator, where the northeast and southeast trade winds converge. The ITCZ was originally identified from the 1920s to the 1940s as the "Intertropical Front" ("ITF"), but after the recognition in the 1940s and the 1950s of the significance of wind field convergence in tropical weather production, the term "ITCZ" was then applied. When
Wind lie near the average latitude of the subtropical ridge, where descent reduces the relative humidity of the air mass. The strongest winds are in the mid-latitudes where cold polar air meets warm air from the tropics. The trade winds (also called trades) are the prevailing pattern of easterly surface winds found in the tropics towards the Earth's equator. The trade winds blow predominantly from the northeast in the Northern Hemisphere and from the southeast in the Southern Hemisphere. The trade winds act as the steering flow for tropical cyclones that form over the world's oceans. Trade winds also steer African