Someone In The Cockpit Programmed The Turn That Diverted The Malaysia Plane From Its Original Path

REUTERS/Phu Quoc

The westward turn that diverted the missing Malaysia airplane from its original path toward Beijing was programmed into a computer system in the plane's cockpit, The New York Times reports.

This evidence means that the turn toward the Indian Ocean was not made by someone manually operating the plane's controls.

And whoever programmed the Flight Management System likely had knowledge about airplane systems, which further points to the plane's captain and first officer as possible suspects.

To alter the plane's path, someone would have had to type seven or eight keystrokes into the computer system that sits between the captain and the first officer, according to the Times. It's not clear whether the turn west was programmed before or after the plan took off.

Flight 370 has been missing for more than a week.