LA PAZ, Mexico (AFP) - Authorities on Wednesday found a small plane that went missing in north-western Mexico this week and confirmed that all 14 people aboard are dead, the transport minister said.

"The Cessna Caravan... with 13 passengers and a pilot was found. Unfortunately, no survivors," Transport Minister Gerardo Ruiz Esparza wrote on Twitter.

The transport ministry said a helicopter found the turboprop in the La Giganta mountains 26km west of the Loreto airport from where it took off last Monday in the Baja California peninsula.

"For now the cause of the accident is unknown," Baja California Sur's governor, Mr Marcos Covarrubias, told reporters.

The aircraft had disappeared as tropical storm Octave neared the coast on Monday before weakening to a tropical depression and making landfall on Tuesday.

Authorities had been forced to suspend the search twice due to the heavy rains produced by Octave.

On Wednesday, some 120 troops and officials from the prosecutor's office set out to reach the site of the crash via a land route while other rescuers reached it by helicopter.