Michigan Plane Crash Jet Turns Into Mushroom Cloud ... 3 People Killed

 Bone-chilling audio captured the exact moment a control tower lost contact with a doomed private jet Thursday night ... seconds before the craft came crashing down in Michigan, killing all three people onboard.

In the audio, after a back-and-forth exchange between pilot and tower, you can hear the jet starts to fail ... with the panicked pilot yelling to the air traffic controller, "Stall, recovery! Stall, recovery!" as he fought to keep control.

Air traffic control are heard desperately asking, "What is your altitude? ... Do

you read?" -- and when he realized the pilot was gone, he radioed other planes in the sky to watch for black smoke rising from the ground.

One pilot answered back, confirming they spotted the thick, burning smoke pouring from a wooded area off a road in Bath Township, just outside Lansing ... about 90 miles northwest of Detroit. The plane was a Hawker 800, according to FOX 17.

Flight data showed the jet plunged more than 12,000 feet in less than a minute.

The three people killed were not publicly identified. The official cause of the crash isn't clear, but the FAA had already launched an investigation.