Washington: 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 metres at a time, the New York Times reported, citing a person who reviewed the jet's air traffic communications.

The captain of the Boeing 737 Max 8 asked in a panicky voice to turn back only three minutes into the flight as the plane accelerated to abnormal speeds, the newspaper reported.

All contact with Flight 302 was lost five minutes after takeoff and even before the captain's radio message, controllers knew he had an emergency, according to the newspaper.

The March 10 crash, the second involving Boeing's 737 Max in less than five months, triggered a wave of groundings for the plane by airlines and regulators around the world and US authorities finally followed them on Wednesday.