(CNN) Preliminary findings from officials investigating the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 crash suggest that a flight-control feature automatically activated before the plane nose-dived into the ground, according to reporting from the Wall Street Journal.

Citing multiple unnamed sources, the WSJ reported that the findings are the first to come to light based on data retrieved from Flight 302's black boxes.

Earlier this month, the Federal Aviation Administration agency grounded all Boeing 737 Max planes, saying it had identified similarities between the Ethiopian Airlines crash and the Lion Air crash in Indonesia six months earlier.

Ethiopian Minister of Transport later reiterated that point, saying preliminary data recovered from the black boxes of the crash in Ethiopia showed similarities to the Lion Air crash.

Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed the morning of March 10 after taking off from Addis Ababa on its way to Nairobi, Kenya, killing all 157 people on board.