Antananarivo - Six people - three Italians, one Swiss national and two local pilots - were killed on Wednesday when their light aircraft crashed shortly after take-off from an airport in south-west Madagascar, officials said.
The small Cessna plane carrying the foreign passengers, all believed to be employees of a mining company, and two Madagascan pilots burst into flames and went down in Toaliara on the Indian Ocean island, they said.
"A Cessna 425 craft belonging to a private company crashed at 4.17am, that is, two minutes after take-off," said Richard Andimbisoa the fire chief in Toaliara, about 1 000km south-west of the capital.
"We don't know the cause of the accident but witnesses said they saw fire coming from the craft just after take-off," he told reporters by phone.
He initially identified the victims as four Italians and the two pilots, but the Italian foreign ministry said only three were Italians and Andimbisoa said later that one of the foreigners was indeed Swiss.
"There are six dead, three Italians, one Swiss and the two crew," he said.
Magrama, the joint venture Italian-Madagascar mining company for which the passengers worked, also confirmed the nationalities of the victims.
Andimbisoa said the accident occurred when the Magrama employees were returning to Antananarivo after a visit on Tuesday to a marble mine south of Toalira.
Magrama mines marble near the town of Bekily, about 200km south-east of Toaliara, according to officials. - Sapa-AFP