plus, a news chopper down in flames, and people are dead. it's a very busy news day. so let's get to it. >> announcer: now, "shepard smith reporting," live from the fox news desk. good tuesday to you and yours. first from the deck this afternoon, analysts say it could be the biggest clue yet about why that missing jumbo jet flew off course. according to the reporting of the "new york times" newspaper it wasn't off course at all. that's the course they programmed. somebody preprogrammed this new route before the jet's tracking systems went dark. that is a drastic change in the flight path that somebody planned before the pilots indicated to ground controllers that everything was just fine. according to the "times" report out today, the jet's computer sent information on the planned course change by 1:07 a.m. local time there. then 12 minutes later malaysian officials say the co-pilot radioed a routine sign-off to ground controllers saying all right, good night. no sign that anything at all was wrong. it was just one minute later at