Originally Posted by
Water pilot
I read several hundred posts ago MCAS uses a circuit that trims faster than the thumb switches, which is a key part of the problem. Just using the thumb switches is what the first victims did, and we have all been told that was obviously wrong and poor airmanship.
My understanding is that ANY use of the thumb switches disables MCAS. Any type of nose up trim stops the MCAS dead in it's tracks. If you release the thumb switch, a faulty "original" MCAS will start trimming again but only after 5 seconds. It should have been easy enough to keep stabbing the the nose up trim as much as you need to overcome the MCAS down trimming. At that point you would have to realize that the trim is not behaving like you want it to, and you should hit the Stab Trim Cut Out switches and just use the manual trim wheel.
Any "poor airmanship" criticism is just because they did not keep on using the thumb switches to keep nose up trim. There may be some underlying issues we don't know about that prevented them from operating the nose up trim. Until we get the full accident report, we don't really know if that is true.