MORONI - An airliner with 150 people on board belonging to Yemeni state carrier Yemenia crashed in the Indian Ocean archipelago of Comoros on Tuesday, a senior government official said.

"We don't know if there are any survivors among the 150 people on the plane," Comoros vice-president Idi Nadhoim told Reuters from the airport at the main island's capital Moroni.

Nadhoim said the accident happened in the early hours of Tuesday, but could not give any more details.

"There is a crash, there is a crash in the sea," said an unnamed official who answered the phone in the Yemenia office in Moroni. He declined further comment.

An airline official in Yemen declined to comment.

Yemenia, which is 51 percent owned by the Yemeni government and 49 percent owned by the Saudi Arabian government, flies to Moroni, according to flight schedules on its Web site.