Originally Posted by
Stick Flying
You are missing the point. The leak suggested the "plane did what it was told to by someone in the cockpit". That would rule out runaway trim in my opinion. I will concede, the leak is no more reliable than a paper tissue condom.
Either way, runaway trim has a memory item drill. Given the demise of the Max, I'd have thought any Boeing crews would be pretty hot on that.
Maybe, I am missing the point less than you think. Read this post:
“The plane did what we read back from what the sensors of the cockpit flight controls registered on the FDR."
Or so to say, don't blindly trust sensors / sensor registrations, when things did go haywire. A sensor could register trim switch activation, whereas the factual situation might be a short circuit, simulating the trim switch activation.
And, of course, runaway trims are a hot item for Boing 737 crews, though we also know, that "the manual trim wheel is there because of regulations", "manually stopping that trim wheel is quite a challenge to put it mildly" and "manually trimming using the trim wheel is a demand that largely only works during certification demonstration" (and not, when things go haywire).
We do have the situation of a complete recovery, as well an initial action to return to the original FL and then, things go haywire again. All accompanied by obvious attempts to "stay on course in a turbulent handling situation". This is not something that much compatible with a suicide attempt.