The electric trim switches override MCAS (and indeed the crew of ET302 almost saved the aircraft by turning it back on and commanding aircraft-nose-down (AND) with the electric trim).
What is inexplicable is that they stopped doing that while leaving the trim system enabled after correctly disabling it via the memory item checklist.
Boeing’s not blameless here, nor should the crew of ET302 bear the primary fault, but they seem to have understood the issue (and it’s not possible they didn’t know about MCAS) and were frustratingly close to saving the flight.
What is inexplicable is that they stopped doing that while leaving the trim system enabled after correctly disabling it via the memory item checklist.
Boeing’s not blameless here, nor should the crew of ET302 bear the primary fault, but they seem to have understood the issue (and it’s not possible they didn’t know about MCAS) and were frustratingly close to saving the flight.