A small plane carrying Mexico's Interior Minister and a former attorney-general crashed in a wealthy Mexico City neighbourhood on Tuesday, killing at least eight people and injuring dozens more, officials said.



Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard said there were no survivors, but government officials did not confirm that Interior Secretary Juan Camilo Mourino and former assistant attorney-general Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos had died.



Mr Ebrard said "there is no other possibility" of survivors considering the force of the crash, which set two dozen cars ablaze and spread pieces of wreckage across a wide area.



The flight was traveling from the city of San Luis Potosi to Mexico City.



Secretary of Transportation Luis Tellez confirmed that Mourino and Vasconcelos were aboard.



The small plane went down in Mexico City's wealthy Lomas de Chapultepec neighbourhood.



Television footage showed cars in flames and rescue authorities dashing about on the ground to control the flames and keep spectators away.



Mr Ebrard said that 1800 people were evacuated from area offices.



Civil aviation officials were investigating the cause of the crash, he said.

"Firemen, police and ambulances are on site. It was a plane travelling from San Luis Potosi [in central Mexico] with nine passengers aboard. Some cars burned too," a ministry official said.



"The explosion was enormous, the flames rose higher than the buildings on Reforma [the capital's main avenue]," a witness said.



Parked cars at the site of the crash were seen burning in television footage from the scene.



Officials did not say what type of plane it was.



The cause of the accident, which occurred shortly before 7pm local time, was unclear.



Agencies