A suspect flight-control feature in the deadly crashed Ethiopian's Boeing 737 MAX plane was automatically activated before the plane hit the ground, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Friday citing investigators of the case.

People walk past a part of the wreckage at the scene of the Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET 302 plane crash, near the town of Bishoftu, southeast of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, March 10, 2019. (Photo: VCG)

The investigators reached the preliminary conclusion based on data retrieved from the flight's black boxes.

One of the investigators said in the WSJ story that the emerging consensus is the strongest indication yet that the same Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) misfired in the two fatal flights, the Ethiopian flight that killed 157 people in March and the Indonesian flight that killed 189 people last October.

The MCAS is an automated safety feature on the 737 MAX designed to prevent the plane from entering into a stall, or losing lift.

The US Federal Aviation Administration tentatively approved sweeping software and pilot-training changes for the Boeing 737 MAX planes, with the goal to fix the problems with the suspect flight-control system, the WSJ reported March 23.

(Compiled by Zhan Huilan)