The pilots of the doomed Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 followed proper procedures but were unable to regain control of the plane, which hit an airspeed as high as 575 mph, well above its operational limits, before crashing, investigators said Thursday.

“The crew performed all the procedures repeatedly provided by the manufacturer, but was not able to control the aircraft,” Ethiopian Transport Minister Dagmawit Moges said, citing findings based on the voice and flight-data recorders.

Flight 302’s takeoff on March 10 appeared to be “very normal” before two angle-of-attack sensors – which determine how much of the nose is pointing up or down relative to the flow of air — sent conflicting information to the autopilot system.

The nose pointed down four times without input from the crew, according to a report by Ethiopia’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau.

“Shortly after liftoff, the value of the left angle of attack sensor deviated from the right one·and reached 74.5 degrees while the right angle of attack sensor value was 15.3 degrees,” the report said.

“Then after; the stick shaker activated and remained active until near the end of the flight,” it added, referring to a mechanical device that alerts a pilot of an imminent stall.

At some point, the autopilot was switched off and the captain called out “pull up” three times to his co-pilot as the pair fought to gain control of the Nairobi, Kenya-bound plane.

Three minutes after takeoff and three minutes before crashing, the captain asked the first officer to try the manual trim system, which changes the level of the plane. He answered that it was not working.

The plane then pitched down at a 40-degree angle, slamming into a field outside the capital of Addis Ababa, where the engines were buried at a depth of 32 feet in a crater 90 feet wide and 130 feet long.

“This accident was not survivable,” according to the report, which also said the pilots were licensed and qualified to fly the plane.

The nose-down commands were issued by the software in Boeing’s Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, an anti-stall flight control system known by its acronym, MCAS, that takes readings from the two angle-of-attack sensors.

The report recommends “the aircraft flight control system shall be reviewed by the manufacturer,” Dagmawit said Thursday.

“Aviation authorities shall verify that the review of the aircraft flight control system has been adequately addressed by the manufacturer before the release of the aircraft for operations,” she added.

Boeing’s top-selling aircraft has been grounded around the world since the March 10 disaster, which came just five months after a Lion Air 737 MAX 8 crash in Indonesia that killed 189.

An initial report into that accident also raised questions about the jet’s software, as well as training and maintenance.

On Thursday, Boeing said a new software fix for its anti-stall system will give pilots the ability to always override the system if activated by faulty sensor data.

“Understanding the circumstances that contributed to the Ethiopian accident is critical to ensuring safe flight,” Boeing’s commercial airplanes chief Kevin McAllister said in a statement.

He said Boeing would carefully review the preliminary report and take “any and all” additional steps necessary to enhance the safety of Boeing aircraft.

Two aviation sources familiar with the probe told ABC News earlier Thursday that one of the Ethiopian plane’s angle-of-attack sensors was damaged upon takeoff from a bird or foreign object, triggering the erroneous data and the MCAS activation.

But an Ethiopian official disputed that report.

“We did not find any information regarding the FOD (foreign object damage) on the aircraft,” said Amdye Andualem, chairman of the Ethiopian Accident Investigation Bureau. “The data provided by the FDR (flight data recorder) doesn’t indicate that there is an FOD.”

Meanwhile, the first two lawsuits stemming from the disaster were filed in Chicago by the family of Samya Stumo, 24, who was on a work assignment in Africa when she was killed.

Stumo, the niece of consumer advocate and political activist Ralph Nader, was a health-care analyst with a Washington-based global health organization ThinkWell, according to ABC News.

One lawsuit names the Chicago-based Boeing, Ethiopian Airlines and Rosemount Aerospace Inc., which made the plane’s flight control system. The second suit was filed against the Federal Aviation Administration, which certified the aircraft.

“The tragedy of the hundreds of lives lost in two 737 MAX crashes is just one more example of corporate America running over government regulators, such as the FAA. It is a revolving door of influence, money and power over safety for passengers,” Joe Cotchette, an attorney for the family, said in a statement.

With Post wires