WASHINGTON (AP) — A U.S. official says investigators are examining the possibility that someone caused the disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines jet with 239 people on board, and that it may have been “an act of piracy.”

The official wasn’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter and spoke only if not identified. While other theories are still being examined, the official says key evidence for “human intervention” in the plane’s disappearance is that contact with its transponder stopped about a dozen minutes before a messaging system quit.

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