Boeing 737 Max Hit Trouble Right Away, Pilot’s Tense Radio Messages Show – The New York Times

Then the controllers observed the plane going up and down by hundreds of feet, and it appeared to be moving unusually fast, the person said. The controllers, the person said, “started wondering out loud what the flight was doing.”

Two other Ethiopian flights, 613 and 629, were approaching from the east, and the controllers, sensing an emergency on Flight 302, ordered them to remain at higher altitudes. It was during that exchange with the other planes, the person said, that Captain Getachew, with panic in his voice, interrupted with his request to turn back.

Flight 302 was just three minutes into its flight, the person said, and appeared to have accelerated to even higher speeds, well beyond its safety limits.