PITTSFIELD, Mass. – A plane that crashed last month, killing a Michigan pilot, plummeted almost 12,000 feet in less than a minute before it hit the ground, according to a preliminary investigation of the crash.

The National Transportation Safety Board’s report on the March 25 crash in Pittsfield, released Saturday, did not report the crash’s cause. The cause is likely to be included in the NTSB’s final report.

Pilot Brian Templeton of Waterford, Mich., was the only person on board the plane. There were no injuries on the ground. The MU-2 Mitsubishi turboprop, owned by Royal Air Freight Inc. of Waterford, Mich., had been carrying cargo from Hagerstown, Md., to Bangor, Maine.

Just before the accident, the New York Air Route Traffic Control Center told Templeton to contact air traffic controllers in Boston. The pilot did not contact Boston, however, and there were no further communications with the pilot, according to the NTSB report.

Radar data indicated the airplane was level at 17,000 feet, flying northeast, when the pilot climbed about 300 feet of altitude just after 5:30 p.m. Then, in 50 seconds, the airplane plunged from about 17,300 feet to about 5,700 feet.

Just before the plane crashed, several witnesses described seeing the plane spinning wildly in the air, making loud grinding or whining sounds. It crashed and burst into flames about 100 feet from a school bus garage in a field bordered by a shopping center, a residential area, a busy highway and a General Electric plant.