ANCHORAGE (Reuters) - An excursion plane carrying eight passengers from a Holland America Line cruise ship crashed on Thursday in south-east Alaska, the company said, killing all nine people aboard, the aircraft company said.

Promech Air said in a statement that the eight passengers and pilot were killed when the plane went down during a tour of the Misty Fjords area near the town of Ketchikan on Thursday afternoon.

The crash occurred near Ella Lake, about 30km north-east of the town of Ketchikan, the Seattle-based company said in a statement.

The small float plane was owned by Promech Air and carried eight passengers from the cruise ship Westerdam and a pilot, it said. The ship left Seattle on Saturday.

The excursion flight was sold through Holland America Line, a unit of Carnival Corp.

US Coast Guard and local search and rescue teams were on their way to the site of the accident, it said.

Anchorage, Alaska, CBS affiliate KTVA quoted a spokesman for the Alaska State Troopers as saying the plane was found on a rock face about 240m above Ella Lake.

Representatives from the Alaska State Troopers, Coast Guard and National Transportation Safety Board were not immediately available for comment.