I saw this on the news the other day, and the thought came to mind, that if this pilot, had all this equipment in his home, he probably knew a lot about flying planes and all the "equipment" that is now being talked about.
The article says there are two ways - the pilot and the airline. However if it was the airline, that would be quite a big conspiracy - saying that the airline wanted to divert its own plane. And ... if that sort of thing happened, with the pilot not being “in on it” - then he would take control and override the control.
In this case, you can be assured it came from the cockpit and that it was someone who knew very well how to handle the equipment.