OTTAWA (AFP) - Five people died after a small aircraft crashed and burst into flames on approach to an airstrip in northern Canada, police said.

Two passengers, however, survived the crash - a 29-year-old man and a 50-year-old woman, both from Winnipeg, Manitoba.

"The one male was actually the one that called us to report the crash. He was able to pull the woman out of the wreckage prior to it becoming fully engulfed in flames," a police spokesman told the daily Globe and Mail.

The pair were taken to an area hospital and treated for non-life-threatening injuries, the Ontario Provincial Police said in a statement.

The aircraft, a Bearskin Airlines 19-passenger twin-engine turboprop plane, took off from Sioux Lookout, Ontario on a flight on Sunday to Red Lake, about 440 kilometres north of Thunder Bay, Ontario.

It crashed just after 6.30pm local time on Sunday (8.30am on Monday, Singapore time).