This was the plane that mysteriously crashed in flight over the Atlantic Ocean two years ago.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704569404576297332717532042.html
The working assumption is that the air speed detectors iced over and the pilot failed to notice the autopilot controlling the plane was slowing the plane down at high altitudes inside a severe thunderstorm cloud – and the plane likely stalled and broke up on its way down.
The wreckage was discovered a few weeks ago, and the Flight Data Recorder appears intact. It was found in relatively shallow water, so the chances of recovering data are fairly good.
I wrote about this at the time as another possible example of humans becoming too reliant on technology and then failing to respond correctly when the technology fails – this happened about the same time as the Metro crash in Washington DC
so much for “fly by wire” technology