I believe they're getting the "black boxes" from Ethiopian air quite easily as it had just gotten off the ground. The Indonesian one has it's data in public:
Satcom Guru: First Look at JT610 Flight Data
If it's the same issue we will know, I think quite soon...
Interesting.
First, I'm no expert. I've only a passing familiarity with flight controls.
(Even though I once worked on designing them on the F18, it's surprising
how little one needs to know about the larger picture when running a line
to a tailhook uplatch.)
Some things were odd....
1) One of the angle of attack (AOA) indicators was misbehaving, but also one
of their airspeed indicators also differed from the other. I'd suspect an exterior
contaminant causing simultaneous failure (Pitot tubes & vanes can fail if
painted incorrectly. But that shouldn't happen with a new plane.)
2) The human pilots were arguing with the auto controls (MCAS).
The pilots wanted the nose up, & MCAS wanted it down to increase airspeed
to avoid a stall. Were the pilots flying reading a different angle of attack from
MCAS? Did the latter dive because it thought it was to high an AOA?
I wonder about the last one because I'd expect the computer to link to the
artificial horizon as another voter in the AOA sensor system.
3) Why were the engines not throttled back to avoid overspeed?