A Cuban-operated airliner with at least 110 people aboard has crashed and burned in a field just after take-off from the Havana airport.
The ruling Communist Party newspaper, Granma, said there were three survivors.
Five of the passengers plus the crew were foreign citizens, media reports said.
The Mexican Government said Mexican citizens were among the dead, without providing further details.
The aircraft, on a domestic flight to Holguin in eastern Cuba, crashed shortly after taking off from Havana.
State TV said the jet veered sharply to the right after leaving the runway.
There were 105 passengers, including five children, and nine crew members onboard."There is a high number of people who appear to have died," Cuban president Miguel Diaz-Canel said from the scene, adding that the survivors were seriously injured.
"Things have been organised, the fire has been put out, and the remains are being identified."
Mr Diaz-Canel said authorities were investigating the cause of the crash.
Wreckage was strewn over the area 20 kilometres south of Havana, a witness said, and blackened parts of the fuselage were visible."The only thing we heard, when we were checking in, an explosion, the lights went out in the airport and we looked out and saw black smoke rising and they told us a plane had crashed," Argentine tourist Brian Horanbuena said at the airport.
Skies were overcast and rainy at the airport at the time of the incident."We heard an explosion and then saw a big cloud of smoke go up," said Gilberto Menendez, who runs a restaurant near the crash site in the agricultural area of Boyeros.
Carlos Alberto Martinez, the director of Havana's Calixto Garcia hospital, said four victims of the accident had been brought there.One had died and three others, all women, were in a serious condition, he said.
"She is alive but very burnt and swollen," said a distressed relative of one of the survivors at the hospital.
The flight was leased by airline Cubana from a small Mexican airline called Damojh or Global, Cuban state media said.
Holguin has some of the island's most pristine beaches, and attracts tourists.
A Damojh representative in Mexico said, "we are gathering what we can to give correct information".
The nationality of those on board was not immediately clear.
State media said that the crew were foreign, but provided no further details.
Flight tracking websites indicated the flight was CU972, departing Havana at 11am local time.
Cuban First Vice-President Salvador Valdes Mesa met with Cubana officials on Thursday to discuss improvements to its service.
The airline blames its spotty record on a lack of parts and planes because of the US trade embargo against the communist-run country.
It was Cuba's third major aviation accident since 2010.
Last year a Cuban military plane crashed into a hillside in the western province of Artemisa, killing eight soldiers.
In 2010, an AeroCaribbean flight from Santiago to Havana went down in bad weather, killing all 68 people aboard, including 28 foreigners, in what was the country's worst air disaster in more than two decades.
Reuters/AP
