At least three crew members were killed when a military transport plane crashed near Seville airport in south-western Spain today, officials said.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said up to 10 crew members were on board the brand new Airbus A400M aircraft which was undergoing flight trials at the airport.

An Interior Ministry spokeswoman at the scene of the crash told the Associated Press that two injured crew members had been rescued alive and taken to hospitals in Seville, one still conscious and another with serious burns.

She said three bodies have been recovered from the wreckage, which is still being inspected.

Airbus confirmed the crash in a statement and said the aircraft was intended for delivery to Turkey.

Spain's airport authority, AENA, said Seville airport had been closed for just over an hour and a half as its fire crews attended the crash outside its perimeter fence. Three incoming flights to Seville were diverted to Malaga and Jerez airports, AENA said.

The crash also knocked out power at an industrial estate in the suburb of Carmona, AENA said.

Spain's air traffic controllers said on their Twitter account that the pilots had communicated just before the impact that a fault was affecting the flight. The crash happened a mile north of Seville airport, they said.

The controllers said one of the flights diverted to Malaga was a transport plane used to deliver aircraft parts for assembly. It had been flying in from an Airbus facility in Hamburg, Germany.

Seville is the final assembly point for the A400M - a large, propeller-driven transport aircraft. First delivered in 2013, some 194 have been ordered by eight countries - including Spain - to replace their ageing Hercules fleets.