Washington: A review of emails and a search of a home flight simulator have found nothing to suggest the pilots on missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 purposely diverted it from its Beijing destination, according to two U.S. law enforcement officials.
"Nothing stuck out," said one of the sources, who was briefed on the search conducted by Malaysian officials.
The findings Tuesday appeared to undercut theories of a suicide, even as U.S. law enforcement officials continued to focus on hijack scenarios or other means of sabotage, including whether someone preprogrammed some of the aircraft's computer systems to execute the diversion.
"It's still possible that someone entered the cockpit and took the flight a different direction," said one U.S. source, speaking confidentially because the inquiry is ongoing. "Or it was tinkered with beforehand."
An additional theory remains that one of the pilots "took it upon himself" to divert the plane for unknown reasons, the source said.
The crew could have been trying to divert the aircraft toward the Malaysian island of Langkawi, which has a 13,000-foot runway and an easy approach, one commercial pilot suggested in an Internet posting that stirred much discussion Tuesday.
A team of investigators with the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board has been dispatched to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia's capital. That team is headed by John Lovell, a longtime NTSB investigator with experience in assisting foreign governments with crash investigations.
China's role in the search, now encompassing about 3 million square miles, also appeared to grow Tuesday. The official New China News Agency said two naval groups turned westward, toward the Andaman Islands, and waters southwest of Sumatra, an island in western Indonesia. They join two U.S. anti-submarine surveillance aircraft combing the south Indian Ocean.
Malaysian authorities have been focusing on the crew since declaring Saturday that the Boeing 777's sharp and sudden diversion about 50 minutes into the March 8 flight from Kuala Lumpur resulted from a "deliberate action by someone on the plane."
19/03/14 Richard A. Serrano and Barbara Demick/Los Angeles Times
To Read the News in full at Source, Click the Headline
"Nothing stuck out," said one of the sources, who was briefed on the search conducted by Malaysian officials.
The findings Tuesday appeared to undercut theories of a suicide, even as U.S. law enforcement officials continued to focus on hijack scenarios or other means of sabotage, including whether someone preprogrammed some of the aircraft's computer systems to execute the diversion.
"It's still possible that someone entered the cockpit and took the flight a different direction," said one U.S. source, speaking confidentially because the inquiry is ongoing. "Or it was tinkered with beforehand."
An additional theory remains that one of the pilots "took it upon himself" to divert the plane for unknown reasons, the source said.
The crew could have been trying to divert the aircraft toward the Malaysian island of Langkawi, which has a 13,000-foot runway and an easy approach, one commercial pilot suggested in an Internet posting that stirred much discussion Tuesday.
A team of investigators with the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board has been dispatched to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia's capital. That team is headed by John Lovell, a longtime NTSB investigator with experience in assisting foreign governments with crash investigations.
China's role in the search, now encompassing about 3 million square miles, also appeared to grow Tuesday. The official New China News Agency said two naval groups turned westward, toward the Andaman Islands, and waters southwest of Sumatra, an island in western Indonesia. They join two U.S. anti-submarine surveillance aircraft combing the south Indian Ocean.
Malaysian authorities have been focusing on the crew since declaring Saturday that the Boeing 777's sharp and sudden diversion about 50 minutes into the March 8 flight from Kuala Lumpur resulted from a "deliberate action by someone on the plane."
19/03/14 Richard A. Serrano and Barbara Demick/Los Angeles Times
