Heard or read .. can't remember ACARS was disabled. Or experts (dime a dozen) believe it was disabled.
No indication that ACARS was disabled thus no expert required. Malaysia airlines does not subscribe to the ACARS so their pilots would not be familiar with it. Rolls Royce does have a subscription as part of their maintenance/support for the engines. On this flight there were three messages scheduled. One on takeoff, one upon initial cruise climb complete and one on landing. The second message was sent shortly before the aircraft diverted from plan. The third message was never received because (I assume) the aircraft never landed (crashing doesn’t count). The messages are not of immediate operational interest so they are sent at scheduled transmission windows. The SATCOM link stays active (who turns off their cable modem when they’re not watching television or surfing the Internet).