LOS ANGELES – All six people aboard a small corporate jet died when the aircraft crashed and burned in a field near an airport outside the Los Angeles area early on Saturday, the local and federal authorities said.

The aircraft, a Cessna C550 business jet, was travelling from Las Vegas and crashed near French Valley Airport, more than 130km south of Los Angeles, at around 4.15am, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said in a statement.

Details of the passengers were not immediately available.

Aerial video footage from the local media showed burnt rubble in the shape of a small aircraft lying in a blackened part of a field across the road from the airport.

Radar data from flight tracking website FlightAware shows just one business jet travelling from Las Vegas to French Valley at the time. That plane circled once near the field before descending.

The sheriff’s office in Riverside County, where French Valley Airport is located, said officials responding to the crash located an aircraft fully engulfed in flames in a field and that six occupants were pronounced dead at the scene.

The National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the crash, the FAA said. REUTERS