B737-700 flight crew reported a sudden increase in tailwind resulted in climbing through the assigne...

Attributes
ACN	1417975
Time
Date	201701
Local Time Of Day	1801-2400
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.Airport
State Reference	US
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Night
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	B737-700
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Climb
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	First Officer Pilot Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 214
Person 2
Function	Captain Pilot Not Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Events
Anomaly	Deviation - Altitude Overshoot Deviation - Procedural Clearance Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence

Narrative:

Jet stream wind speed accelerated from 80 knots to 150 knots in a very short time. The aircraft autopilot and auto throttles couldn't adjust quickly enough to changing tailwind. Aircraft accelerated from .78 mach to .82 mach in a matter of seconds. At FL380; aircraft vertical velocity increased from 1500 fpm to over 6500 fpm. I disconnected VNAV and attempted to halt the climb but couldn't stop aircraft from climbing through FL410. Finally stopped ascent at FL420 and descended back to FL410. That was our assigned altitude. Reconnected autopilot and wind settled back to an 80 knot tailwind. Rest of flight was uneventful.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: B737-700 flight crew reported a sudden increase in tailwind resulted in climbing through the assigned cruise altitude.

Narrative: Jet stream wind speed accelerated from 80 knots to 150 knots in a very short time. The aircraft autopilot and auto throttles couldn't adjust quickly enough to changing tailwind. Aircraft accelerated from .78 Mach to .82 Mach in a matter of seconds. At FL380; aircraft vertical velocity increased from 1500 fpm to over 6500 fpm. I disconnected VNAV and attempted to halt the climb but couldn't stop aircraft from climbing through FL410. Finally stopped ascent at FL420 and descended back to FL410. That was our assigned altitude. Reconnected autopilot and wind settled back to an 80 knot tailwind. Rest of flight was uneventful.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.