- Thai data is the second radar evidence that the plane turned toward the Strait of Malacca
- The total search area now stands at 2.24 million square nautical miles
- The New York Times reports the plane's course change was made by computer
- Background checks turn up nothing on Chinese passengers, Beijing says
(CNN) -- New information from the Thai government bolsters the belief that missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 took a sharp westward turn after communication was lost.
The Thai military was receiving normal flight path and communication data from the Boeing 777-200 on its planned March 8 route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing until 1:22 a.m., when it disappeared from its radar.
Six minutes later, the Thai military detected an unknown signal, a Royal Thai Air Force spokesman told CNN. This unknown aircraft, possibly Flight 370, was heading the opposite direction.
Malaysia says the evidence gathered so far suggests the plane was deliberately flown off course, turning west and traveling back over the Malay Peninsula and out into the Indian Ocean.
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A relative of Chinese passengers aboard the missing Malaysia Airlines jet waits for a news briefing by officials in Beijing on Tuesday, March 18. The Boeing 777 disappeared during a March 8 flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing. 
A relative of a Chinese passenger aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 tells reporters in Beijing on March 18 about a hunger strike to protest authorities' handling of information about the missing jet. 
A member of Indonesia's National Search and Rescue Agency joins in a search for the missing plane in the Andaman Sea area around the northern tip of Indonesia's Sumatra on Monday, March 17. 
Relatives of passengers aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 watch a news program about the missing plane as they await information at a hotel ballroom in Beijing on March 17. 
Malaysian Transportation Minister Hishamuddin Hussein, center, shows maps of the search area March 17 at a hotel in Sepang, Malaysia, next to the Kuala Lumpur International Airport. 
U.S. Navy crew members assist in search-and-rescue operations Sunday, March 16, in the Indian Ocean. 
Indonesian personnel watch over high seas during a search operation in the Andaman Sea on Saturday, March 15. 
A foam plane, which has personalized messages for the missing flight's passengers, is seen at a viewing gallery March 15 at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. 
A member of the Malaysian navy makes a call as his ship approaches a Chinese Coast Guard ship in the South China Sea on March 15. 
A Indonesian ship heads to the Andaman Sea during a search operation near the tip of Sumatra, Indonesia, on March 15. 
Elementary school students pray for the missing passengers during class in Medan, Indonesia, on March 15. 
Col. Vu Duc Long of the Vietnam air force fields reporters' questions at an air base in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, after a search operation on Friday, March 14. 
Members of the Chinese navy continue search operations on Thursday, March 13. The search area for Flight 370 has grown wider. After starting in the sea between Malaysia and Vietnam, the plane's last confirmed location, efforts are expanding west into the Indian Ocean. 
A Vietnamese military official looks out an aircraft window during search operations March 13. 
Malaysian air force members look for debris on March 13 near Kuala Lumpur. 
A relative of a missing passenger watches TV at a Beijing hotel as she waits for the latest news March 13. 
A member of the Indonesian National Search and Rescue Agency scans the horizon in the Strait of Malacca on Wednesday, March 12. 
Relatives of missing passengers wait for the latest news at a hotel in Beijing on March 12. 
Journalists raise their hands to ask questions during a news conference in Sepang on March 12. 
Indonesian air force officers in Medan, Indonesia, examine a map of the Strait of Malacca on March 12. 
A member of the Vietnamese air force checks a map while searching for the missing plane on Tuesday, March 11. 
Iranians Pouri Nourmohammadi, second left, and Delavar Seyed Mohammad Reza, far right, were identified by Interpol as the two men who used stolen passports to board the flight. But there's no evidence to suggest either was connected to any terrorist organizations, according to Malaysian investigators. Malaysian police believe Nourmohammadi was trying to emigrate to Germany using the stolen Austrian passport. 
An Indonesian navy crew member scans an area of the South China Sea bordering Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand on Monday, March 10. 
Vietnam air force Col. Le Huu Hanh is reflected on the navigation control panel of a plane that is part of the search operation over the South China Sea on March 10. 
Relatives of the missing flight's passengers wait in a Beijing hotel room on March 10. 
A U.S. Navy Seahawk helicopter lands aboard the USS Pinckney to change crews before returning to search for the missing plane Sunday, March 9, in the Gulf of Thailand. 
Members of the Fo Guang Shan rescue team offer a special prayer March 9 at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. 
A handout picture provided by the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency shows personnel checking a radar screen during search-and-rescue operations March 9. 
Italian tourist Luigi Maraldi, who reported his passport stolen in August, shows his current passport during a news conference at a police station in Phuket island, Thailand, on March 9. Two passengers on the missing Malaysia Airlines flight were reportedly traveling on stolen passports belonging to Maraldi and an Austrian citizen whose papers were stolen two years ago. 
Hugh Dunleavy, commercial director of Malaysia Airlines, speaks to journalists March 9 at a Beijing hotel where relatives and friends of the missing flight's passengers are staying. 
Vietnamese air force crew stand in front of a plane at Tan Son Nhat airport in Ho Chi Minh City on March 9 before heading out to the area between Vietnam and Malaysia where the airliner vanished. 
Buddhist monks at Kuala Lumpur International Airport offer a special prayer for the missing passengers on March 9. 
The Chinese navy warship Jinggangshan prepares to leave Zhanjiang Port early on March 9 to assist in search-and-rescue operations for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight. The Jinggangshan, an amphibious landing ship, is loaded with lifesaving equipment, underwater detection devices and supplies of oil, water and food. 
Members of a Chinese emergency response team board a rescue vessel at the port of Sanya in China's Hainan province on March 9. The vessel is carrying 12 divers and will rendezvous with another rescue vessel on its way to the area where contact was lost with Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. 
The rescue vessel sets out from Sanya in the South China Sea. 
A family member of missing passengers is mobbed by journalists at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Saturday, March 8. 
A Vietnamese air force plane found traces of oil that authorities had suspected to be from the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, the Vietnamese government online newspaper reported March 8. However, a sample from the slick showed it was bunker oil, typically used to power large cargo ships, Malaysia's state news agency, Bernama, reported on March 10. 
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, center, arrives to meet family members of missing passengers at the reception center at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on March 8. 
Malaysia Airlines official Joshua Law Kok Hwa, center, speaks to reporters in Beijing on March 8. 
A relative of two missing passengers reacts at their home in Kuala Lumpur on March 8. 
Wang Yue, director of marketing of Malaysia Airlines in China, reads a company statement during a news conference at the Metro Park Lido Hotel in Beijing on March 8. 
Chinese police at the Beijing airport stand beside the arrival board showing delayed Flight 370 in red on March 8. 
A woman asks a staff member at the Beijing airport for more information on the missing flight. 
A Malaysian man who says he has relatives on board the missing plane talks to journalists at the Beijing airport on March 8. 
Passengers walk past a Malaysia Airlines sign on March 8 at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. 
Malaysia Airlines Group CEO Ahmad Juahari Yahya, front, speaks during a news conference on March 8 at a hotel in Sepang. "We deeply regret that we have lost all contacts" with the jet, he said. The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
Photos: The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 But investigators don't know who was at the controls or why whoever it was took the plane far away from its original destination.
The Thai data is the second radar evidence that the plane did indeed turn around toward the Strait of Malacca.
It follows information from the Malaysian Air Force that its military radar tracked the plane as it passed over the small island of Pulau Perak in the Strait of Malacca.
"The unknown aircraft's signal was sending out intermittently, on and off, and on and off," the spokesman said. The Thai military lost the unknown aircraft's signal because of the limits of its military radar, he said.
The radar data is an encouraging sign that investigators are on the right track, but they still are not sure where the plane ended up.
The latest findings say the plane's last known location detected by a satellite is somewhere along two wide arcs: one stretching north over Asia and the other south into the Indian Ocean. The plane's last electronic connection with the satellite was about six hours after it last showed up on Malaysian military radar.
The total area now being searched stands at 2.24 million square nautical miles, Hishammuddin Hussein, the Malaysian defense and transport minister, said at a news conference Tuesday. That's an area nearly the size of the continental United States.
"This is an enormous search area," Hishammuddin said. "And it is something that Malaysia cannot possibly search on its own. I am therefore very pleased that so many countries have come forward to offer assistance and support to the search and rescue operation."
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China says it has found no evidence that any of its citizens on board the missing plane were involved in hijacking or terrorism.
Background checks on all passengers from the Chinese mainland on the plane have found nothing to support such suspicions, Huang Huikang, the Chinese ambassador to Malaysia, said Tuesday, according to the state-run Chinese news agency Xinhua.
Authorities have said they are investigating all 239 people who were on board the flight, which disappeared more than 10 days ago.
According to the airline, 153 of the 227 passengers on board the plane came from mainland China or Hong Kong.
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Tracking Malaysia Air flight 370 Did plane drop 5,000 ft. to avoid radar? By effectively ruling out suspicions for a large majority of the passengers, Chinese authorities appear to have significantly shortened the list of possible suspects in the investigation.
The Chinese ambassador's statement is also likely to greatly dampen speculation that Uyghur separatists from China's far western region of Xinjiang might have been involved in the plane's disappearance.
One of the two long corridors where authorities say the plane was last detected stretched over Xinjiang, and unconfirmed reports had suggested the possibility that Uyghurs might be connected to the case.
Chinese authorities have accused separatists from Xinjiang of carrying out a terrorist attack 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 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.
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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.
An aviation expert, writing an op-ed for CNN.com, floated the idea last week that whoever changed the plane's course was an expert.
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.
Asked about the report Tuesday, Malaysia Airlines Chief Executive Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said: "As far as we're concerned, the aircraft was programmed to fly to Beijing. That's the standard procedure."
But he didn't rule out the possibility the flight path had been reprogrammed.
"Once you're in the aircraft, anything is possible," he said.
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CNN's Steven Jiang, Sarita Harilela and Mitra Mobasherat contributed to this report.
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