Originally Posted by
LarryJ
MCAS does not take control away from the pilots. It operates the stab trim and can be overridden by the primary electric trim switches and disabled with the trim cutout switches. It is also inhibited with flaps extended or autopilot engaged. An out-of-trim airplane can still be flown, it just becomes progressively more difficult as the out-of-trim condition increases.
Once it's overridden, it's down to brute strength to manually re-trim. As has been shown, this is impossible once a certain speed is reached.
Your response will probably be "they should have reduced speed"... but that would also have pushed the nose down, and at about 1000 feet, that's not exactly what you want.