AFP - Five people were killed on Sunday when their light aircraft crashed into a hill just inland from the French Riviera and burst into flames, local gendarmes said.
   
The airplane, thought to have taken off from Cannes, crashed on a wooded hill near a residential area in Callas, near the southeastern city of Draguignan, just before 10:00 am (0800 GMT), killing all five people on board.
   
Gendarmes and firefighters cordoned off the crash site.
   
The identity of the victims was not immediately known.
   
One resident told AFP he heard a loud bang, "like a gas bottle exploding", as the airplane came down, and that the walls of his house shook from the force of the blast.
   
He and a neighbour -- who saw the aircraft plunging towards the ground with its engine cut out -- headed up towards the wreckage hoping to douse the flames with garden hosepipes "but there was nothing we could do," he said.