Ugh. I just read the report and maintain that the pilots acted incompetently. Though they regained control of the plane and turned off the stab trim system, their reaction took considerable time. The fatal blow, however, is this: distracted by the problem, neither pilot paid attention to the aircraft's speed as they flew along in level flight. They had tunnel vision. You can see in the report that the overspeed clacker began alerting them midway through the incident. With the nose-down trim, this high airspeed exacerbated the difficulty of holding the nose up. Had they slowed down, the aircraft would have been controllable. The moment they reactivated the system at high speed, adding even more nose down trim, they killed themselves and everyone on board.

I also question the lack of clear communication between the two pilots. Examples such as the captain asking the first officer if the aircraft could be manually trimmed and the first officer replying in the negative, with no verification on the part of the captain and no checklist use make me wonder. Maybe they were doing those things. I'd be interested in seeing a transcript. It's understandable why Muilenburg doesn't seem particularly remorseful.