[zipper]

I think he said ‘tops up to 53,000 ft’, and that would explain the turbulence they were dealing with, and of course they couldn’t go that high....so they must have tried to fly through the storm right?

No, apparently they requested a different routing to go around the weather.

They wouldn't have deliberately flown into it, if they were aware of it.

[Kackikat]

The man explaining it about the ‘tops up’ to the altitude means something to how the plane reacts if that goes into the zone (52,000 he said later to correct his earlier number) which causes a freezing that would have iced the plane....my understanding? is like a funnel effect. Not that the plane went up that high, but that it was affected by it flying THROUGH the storm.