Well sort of but not quite. When the pilots clicked the trim up switch on the yoke, it disabled the MCAS system for 5 seconds -- i.e. it made the problem go away temporarily. Then MCAS comes right back with more nose down trim. This is not a typical runaway trim situation where it's just continuously rolling in more trim. The pilots had no idea that this system existed or that a "runaway trim" failure could have these characteristics.
Sure, it's easy to say from the ground with what we know now that all they had to do was flip a couple of switches, and that a previous crew managed to land safely. However, the job of an airplane is not to be safe only with quick thinking, above average pilots. If a single sensor failure can present a situation that 99% of pilots will successfully diagnose and recover from, you're looking at multiple crashes per year.
The pilots did not need to diagnose the system. It would have been obvious that the trim system was running, and was causing the nose down. The trim cutoff systems are right there on the center console. They dealt with the issue for 12 minutes, lightning reflexes were not necessary.
The NTSB will of course look into the CVR, the pilots' training, background and track record to try to figure out why they did not use the cutoff switches. I'm very curious about that.
Similar types of accidents have occurred in the past and turned out to be CRM (Cockpit Resource Management) issues, where the copilot recognized what was wrong but was intimidated by the pilot into doing nothing.
Sure, it's easy to say from the ground with what we know now that all they had to do was flip a couple of switches, and that a previous crew managed to land safely. However, the job of an airplane is not to be safe only with quick thinking, above average pilots. If a single sensor failure can present a situation that 99% of pilots will successfully diagnose and recover from, you're looking at multiple crashes per year.