It sounds like the power dissipation protection. Playing at a high volume level, the speaker load at that instant may have presented to the amp a (say) 45 degree phase angle which doubles the power drawn from the amp -- but only a quarter the delivered power is used by the speaker (i.e. there is no spike in volume). That would account for the very high heat sink temperature and the amp only shutting down for a second. If it was a thermal cut out, it would have taken longer for the amp to resume since the heat sink temperature does not drop that quick to reset the thermal cutoff device.