I believe today the Malaysians stated that in fact the ACARs was turned off and, according the timing of it, that the person making the “All right, good night” radio call to KUL ATC was not the person doing it. As disabling the ACARs would be done in another part of the airplane that then indicates that someone was in the cockpit talking to ATC at roughly the same time someone else was manually turning it off elsewhere in the plane.
Ugh.....
The whole thing adds to another dimension of fear. People would at least console themselves that a hijacking would mean a quick end.
Malaysian misunderstanding of ACARS. There was no simultaneous turning off of ACARS while pilot is radioing goodbye. The last transmission of ACARS was just that: a text message then silence because ACARS wasn’t scheduled to send any more texts until the plane landed. No need for a second person to be climbing down into the electronics bay. One nan job.