I agree - modern planes deal with lightning easily. So, what are some other possibilities? (No distress call - no odd data sent in - no Maydays... nothing.) What's left?
Well...turbulence is a possibility, as they were cruising in an area of fairly strong thunderstorms, although turbulence hasn’t been directly responsible for the destruction of a jetliner in a long time. Two Qantas A330s experienced recent problems with their air data computers, one of them had an “upset” (a momentary loss of control until the pilots could wrestle it back) as a result. An inflight fire is always a possibility like on Swissair 111 in 1998. And you can’t yet rule out the possibility of some sort of explosive device or sabotage.
All we know is that Air France got a sequence of automated messages from the airplane between 2:10 and 2:14 GMT that morning, listing an increasing series of things going wrong. Sometime after 2:14, the plane crashed, out of voice and radar contact with anybody.
}:-)4