These are some links to youtube sims of the two events. It seems that the Lion Air pilot at least who of course did not know about the top secret MCAS system was trying to fight MCAS directly with electric trim and at first was successful but for some reason did not hit the cutout switches after getting back to level flight. So the Lion Air pilot used electric trim correctly but failed to use the cutoff switches and the Ethiopian pilot used the cutoff switches correctly but failed to use the electric trim long enough. Maybe the Ethiopian pilots were aware of the Lion Air flight fighting MCAS with electric trim and losing and just went directly to the runaway trim stab procedure too soon. For whatever reason both flights were also going too fast and made no attempt to slow airspeed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5P8CkVckmA
These are some links to youtube sims of the two events. It seems that the Lion Air pilot at least who of course did not know about the top secret MCAS system was trying to fight MCAS directly with electric trim and at first was successful but for some reason did not hit the cutout switches after getting back to level flight. So the Lion Air pilot used electric trim correctly but failed to use the cutoff switches and the Ethiopian pilot used the cutoff switches correctly but failed to use the electric trim long enough. Maybe the Ethiopian pilots were aware of the Lion Air flight fighting MCAS with electric trim and losing and just went directly to the runaway trim stab procedure too soon. For whatever reason both flights were also going too fast and made no attempt to slow airspeed.