Originally Posted by
Lonestarcaptain
They were already in a decent with limited elevator authority. Thrust is secondary for speed that case. Pitch is primary. What that mean is if you can’t fix the speed with pitch the power isn’t going to do much. (That’s why power is the last item on stall recovery, got to fix the pitch first). However going from takeoff thrust to idle would have greatly changed the thrust vector possibly causing a further nose down moment. The opportunity to manage speed with thrust went out the window when the nose dropped more than a few degrees below the horizon.
The opportunity to manage speed with thrust was lost within seconds of flap retraction. And what happened to what we learned early in our training "if you change something and don't like the results, change it back". If they'd just put the flaps back out (because retracting them is what allowed MCAS to fire) and reduced thrust, they could have come back to land without issue. They clearly forgot step 1, fly the plane.