Five members of a Moroccan family have died from their light plane crashing just minutes after taking off from Grenoble Airport in south-eastern France.

Police say a witness in the Saint-Pierre-de-Bressieux commune reported the twin-engine plane crashed into a hill and burst into flames on Saturday afternoon.

There were no survivors.

A spokeswoman for the Moroccan embassy in Paris, Rachida Jaadi, confirmed to the news agency AFP the five people were two Moroccan expats and their three children.

The plane was registered in Morocco and was flying there with a stopover in Spain, according to a source close to the investigation.

The cause of the crash is still unknown.