MADRID: At least three people were killed when an Airbus A400M military plane crashed near Seville airport in southern Spain on Saturday, the regional emergency services said.

"There are at least three dead and two seriously injured," a spokesman for the emergency services told AFP.

The plane crashed in a non-residential area around a mile north of Seville airport, which was closed to traffic for about an hour.

Airport authority AENA said on Twitter that the airport's firefighters were at the scene of the crash, "beyond the airport's perimeter."

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said there had been "eight to 10 people on board".

Speaking on Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands, where he was attending a campaign meeting, he sent his condolences to the victims, Spanish news agencies reported.

Aviation sources confirmed the plane was one of Airbus' new A400M troop transporters, which are assembled at a factory in Seville.

Airbus Defence and Space, the Airbus division responsible for military aircraft, said the plane was destined for Turkey.

The group sent a team of experts to the crash scene. If confirmed as an accident, it would be the first since the aircraft, which was fraught by development and shipping delays, went into service.