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
Hadley cell Hadley cell The Hadley cell, named after George Hadley, is a global scale tropical atmospheric circulation that features air rising near the Equator, flowing poleward at a height of 10 to 15 kilometers above the earth’s surface, descending in the subtropics, and then returning equatorward near the surface. This circulation creates the trade winds, tropical rain-belts and hurricanes, subtropical deserts and the jet streams. The major driving force of atmospheric circulation is the uneven distribution of solar heating across the Earth, which is greatest near the equator and lesser at the poles. The atmospheric circulation transports energy polewards, thus reducing