(Bloomberg) -- The doomed Ethiopian Airlines plane that crashed on Sunday was in trouble almost immediately after takeoff as it lurched up and down by hundreds of feet at a time, the New York Times reported, citing a person who has reviewed air traffic communications.

The captain of the Boeing Co. 737 Max 8 asked in a panicky voice to turn back only three minutes after takeoff as the plane accelerated to an abnormal speed, the newspaper reported. All contact with Flight 302 was lost five minutes into the flight and even before the captain’s radio message, controllers concluded he had an emergency, according to the newspaper.

Amid groundings worldwide, the U.S. appears likely to keep the Boeing 737 Max parked on the ground into April after satellite data suggested a link between the March 10 Ethiopian Airlines crash and an Indonesian disaster in October.

To contact the reporter on this story: Angus Whitley in Sydney at awhitley1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Young-Sam Cho at ycho2@bloomberg.net

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