The C-130 "Hercules" cargo plane from the Puerto Rico Air National Guard crashed around 11:30 am (1530 GMT) near the Savannah airport.

"There were five fatalities," a spokeswoman from the Georgia National Guard said.

Photographs on Twitter showed the wreckage of a plane engulfed in flames and billowing black smoke.

The US military has been rocked by a string of aviation accidents in recent weeks, including an F-16 crash near Las Vegas last month that killed the pilot.

Just a day earlier, four crew members died when a Marine Corps helicopter crashed while on a routine training mission in Southern California.

And in Djibouti, two incidents triggered the grounding of US military flights.

According to the Military Times, accidents involving the military's manned aircraft rose nearly 40 percent from fiscal years 2013 to 2017.

The publication found the rise coincided with budget cuts from 2013, which impacted training and readiness, as well as heavy wear and tear on aircraft from back-to-back deployments.