That much-noted turn to the west that Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 took from its planned flight path was was carried out through a computer system that was most likely programmed by someone in the plane’s cockpit who was knowledgeable about airplane systems.

That’s according to unnamed senior American officials quoted by the New York Times, which describes the process of bypassing the airliner’s main controls and typing in “seven or eight keystrokes into a computer on a knee-high pedestal between the captain and the first officer”.  It’s one of the facts that have investigators more convinced than ever that MH370 was taken off track as a deliberate action of someone in the cockpit.

Meanwhile, Malaysian officials are back to issuing conflicting statements and misinformation.  Earlier, Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said that MH370’s young first officer Fariq Abdul Hamid used the radio to issue the flight’s final tramission, “All right, good night,” before a key data communications system was “disabled” at 1:07 AM on the morning of 8 March. 

But now, Malaysia Airlines CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya contradicted that, saying Hamid’s final voice transmission may have occurred before that happened.  And the data communications system worked at 1:07 AM, but did not make its next scheduled transmission at 1:37 AM.