Chinese authorities have accused separatists from Xinjiang of carrying out a terrorist attack earlier this month in which eight attackers armed with long knives stormed a train station in Kunming, a city in southwestern China, killing 29 people and wounding more than 140.
China said Tuesday that it had begun to search for the plane in the parts of its territory that fall under the northern corridor, deploying satellite and radar resources.
Experts are analyzing both past and present data along the arc stretching through Chinese territory, Hong Lei, a foreign ministry spokesman, said at a news briefing Tuesday in Beijing.
Turn made by computer?
The pilot and first officer of the missing plane, both of them Malaysian, have come under particular scrutiny in the search for clues. Investigators say that whoever flew the plane off course for hours appeared to know what they were doing.
But officials have so far reported no evidence to tie the pilot and first officer to the plane's disappearance.
Supporting the case that whoever took the plane off course had considerable aviation expertise, The New York Times reported that the aircraft's first turn to the west was carried out through a computer system that was most likely programmed by somebody in the cockpit.
The person who programmed the change of course would have been somebody "knowledgeable about airplane systems," The Times reported, citing unidentified American officials.
The information has increased investigators' focus on the pilot and first officer, the newspaper reported. CNN wasn't immediately able to confirm the report.
Malaysian officials weren't immediately available to comment on the Times report or the Chinese ambassador's statement.
From BEN Latest News: www.benlatestnews.com
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