I assume each model of plane has a maximum altitude based on safety and other considerations. I know that pilots have a variety of reasons for using various altitudes: weather, fuel efficiency, traffic, etc.
What was the manufacturer’s maximum altitude for the CRJ-200?
What mechanism in climbing from 37,000 feet (which is the new limit) to 41,000 feet could cause both engines to fail nearly simultaneously?
(I’m not asking for speculation about what happened with this plane - I don’t think any of us could know. I want to know what differences exist in flying at those two altitudes that would justify this new policy. To someone without much knowledge about this kind of thing, 37k and 41k sound pretty similar, and I wonder what could change so dramatically between those two altitudes to cause two jet engines to fail.)
With any engine, piston or turbine, you are going to have an altitude where the air is too thin to support combustion. I would suspect that as you fly higher, the fuel/air mixture setting is going to be increasingly critical, increasing the probability of a flame-out.
This plane had earlier engine problems. The fact that the engines could not be restarted at lower altitudes makes it clear that this had not just an altitude problem.