In other words, it had been programmed to turn by someone in the cockpit. This aircraft did not go into a heading mode. It was a deliberate, and premeditated turn, if the investigators' leaks to the media are to be believed.
This is why they know 'conclusively' that the airplane was hijacked/piloted on its rogue course.
Sorry, Sysock, we cannot "know conclusively" what you suggest from the entry programming a turn. All we can conclude is that the turn was programmed. That part, is "fact." the "why" part is all inference. And other inferences might be drawn; for example, that it was programmed in error.
To show you what happens (inference, of course!) when you program a coding sequence in error, look at KAL 007. Yes, we cannot conclusively establish that as error, either! Although, deliberately tempting nervous and touchy Russians at the height of Cold-War tensions by flying over an off-limits Kamchatka Peninsula bristling with heavy weaponry strikes me as foolhardiness way past what any serious pilot would do. Just saying'.
And once again, I emphasize the difference between "Fact" and "inference." Specifically, we have precisely ZERO FACTS that any act here was deliberate by the flight crew. Or any passenger. Or aliens brought in by teleporting. Or much of anything else. What we KNOW as FACT is that it took off, climbed out normally, topped, levelled, went to the proper waypoint, communicated with no stress in voice - and vanished.
Everything else past that is inference. Inference is what we think "might have happened" and we are converting that, in frustration, into "what did happen." Sorry, guys, but I am not going past the facts.
