missing Malaysian plane... first critical turn pre-progrommed minutes before take off

he New York Times is reporting that the first
critical turn that missing Flight 370 took away
from Beijing was pre-programmed into the
plane’s computer.
New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt says
the turn taken off of its path was done by a
computer system on the plane rather than being
done manually by a pilot.
Essentially, the plane turned itself, but the plane
only could have moved off path if somebody pre-
programmed it. That means that whoever caused
the turn had to program it while on the plane or
before it took off.
Watch Schmidt’s interview above.
Read more below, via NYTimes.com:
Instead of manually operating the plane’s
controls, whoever altered Flight 370’s
path typed seven or eight keystrokes into
a computer on a knee-high pedestal
between the captain and the first officer,
according to officials. The Flight
Management System, as the computer is
known, directs the plane from point to
point specified in the flight plan
submitted before each flight. It is not
clear whether the plane’s path was
reprogrammed before or after it took off.
The fact that the turn away from Beijing
was programmed into the computer has
reinforced the belief of investigators —
first voiced by Malaysian officials — that
the plane was deliberately diverted and
that foul play was involved. It has also
increased their focus on the plane’s
captain and first officer.
According to investigators, it appears that
a waypoint was added to the planned
route. Pilots do that in the ordinary
course of flying if air traffic controllers tell
them to take a different route, to avoid
weather or traffic. But in this case, the
waypoint was far off the path to Beijing.
Whoever changed the plane’s course
would have had to be familiar with Boeing
aircraft, though not necessarily the 777 —
the type of plane that disappeared.
American officials and aviation experts
said it was far-fetched to believe that a
passenger could have reprogrammed the
Flight Management System.
Normal procedure is to key in a five-letter
code — gibberish to non-aviators — that
is the name of a waypoint. A normal flight
plan consists of a series of such
waypoints, ending in the destination
airport. For an ordinary flight, waypoints
can be entered manually or uploaded into
the F.M.S. by the airline.
One of the pilots keys in a waypoint on a
separate screen known as a scratchpad,
and after confirming that it has no
typographical errors, pushes another
button to move it into the sequence
already in the flight plan. Normal practice
is to orally confirm the waypoint with the
other pilot, then push another button to
instruct the airplane to go there. With the
change in course, the plane would bank
at a comfortable angle, around 20
degrees, and make the turn. Passengers
would not feel anything unus