At least 42 people were killed and another 11 taken to hospital after their plane crashed and caught fire while trying to make an emergency landing in stormy weather on a small Taiwanese island.

'We have found 42 bodies and some body parts so far,' an official from the Penghu county fire department told AFP.

Taiwanese Transport Minister Yeh Kuang-shih was quoted as saying the flight, operated by Taiwan's TransAsia Airways, was carrying 58 passengers and crew members.

'There were 58 people on board including four crew members, four children,' he told reporters earlier.

The government's Central News Agency news agency had earlier quoted a local fire brigade chief as saying that 51 people had been killed.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade confirmed no Australians appear to have been on board the plane, based on initial advice.

Two French nationals were on board the plane and the de facto French embassy had been notified, Yeh said.

Flight GE222, a twin-engine turboprop ATR-72 aircraft, was heading from the southern port city of Kaohsiung to the island of Penghu in the Taiwan Strait, according to the Taiwanese news agency.

It crashed outside the airport in Xixi village, with pictures in local media showing firefighters using flashlights to look at wreckage in the darkness.

'It's chaotic on the scene,' Jean Shen, director of the civil aviation authorities, told Reuters. 'The fire department was putting out the flames. They will give us the number of casualties very soon.'

Penghu is a lightly populated island that averages about two flights a day from Taipei.

The flight left Kaohsiung at 4.53 p.m. for Magong on Penghu, according to Shen.

Visibility as the plane approached was 1,600 meters (one mile), which met standards for landing, and two flights had landed before GE222, one at 5.34 p.m. and the other at 6.57 p.m., the agency reported.

But it appeared that heavy rain reduced visibility and the plane was forced to pull up and make a second landing attempt, the report cited the county fire department as saying.

At 7.06 p.m., after saying it would make a second attempt at a landing, the plane lost contact with the tower. It failed to reach the runway, crashing onto houses in a village.

First reports from eyewitnesses described a huge ball of fire erupting when the aircraft hit.

Typhoon Matmo slammed into Taiwan on Wednesday with heavy rains and strong winds, shutting financial markets and schools.

The flight had been delayed earlier by bad weather as the typhoon pounded the country.

Shen said the plane was 14 years old.

TransAsia Airways is a Taiwan-based airline with a fleet of 23 mostly Airbus aircraft, flying chiefly on domestic routes, but with some flights to Japan, Thailand and Cambodia among its Asian destinations.

There were no immediate reports of casualties on the ground after the plane smashed into houses in the village of Sisi, a couple of kilometres from Magong airport.

'I heard a loud sound and my instinct was that it's a plane crash,' a villager surnamed Wang was quoted as saying by the Apple Daily Newspaper website after the plane crashed next to his home and damaged his house.

Wang said he smelt gasoline and saw some passengers with blood on their faces and bodies brought out of the plane.

Shen earlier said 51 were feared dead in the crash, but later revised the figure to 47.

'The control tower lost contact with the aircraft soon after they requested a go-around (second attempt to land),' Shen told reporters.

Local fire chief Hung Yung-peng told TVBS there were 11 survivors, with all others on board feared dead.

'The weather was bad and some witnesses said there were storms and lightning when the plane went down,' said Hung.

'We rushed 12 people to hospitals soon after our arrival. One died at the hospital. We kept searching for the other passengers from the wreckage but with more and more bodies pulled out, I'm afraid the rest of them might be dead,' Hung said.

Several television stations also quoted witnesses saying the plane was on fire before it crashed.

Television footage showed anxious relatives of passengers gathered at TransAsia's counter at Kaohsiung airport, with one woman sitting on the floor and wailing after she could not get in touch with her daughter.

TransAsia Airways president Chooi Yee-choong bowed in front of television cameras to apologise for the accident.

An airline official speaking on local television identified the pilot as 60-year-old Lee Yi-liang and co-pilot Chiang Kuan-hsin, 39, saying they had both accumulated more than 20,000 flight hours.

'He worked so hard to become a pilot, who can give me my brother back,' Chiang's sister was quoted as saying by the Central News Agency.

French-Italian aircraft manufacturer ATR said the plane was manufactured in June 2000.

'At this time, the circumstances of the accident are still under investigation,' it said in a statement, adding that the Aviation Safety Council of Taiwan would be in charge of the probe

President Ma Ying-jeou's office said it was a 'very sad day in Taiwan's aviation history'.

'All Taiwanese people feel the sorrow and will provide the survivors and families of the deceased the biggest support and assistance,' it said in a statement.

'President Ma Ying-jeou is very saddened... and has instructed relevant units to clarify the case soon.'

Chinese President Xi Jinping was 'deeply grieved' and extended his condolences to relatives of the victims, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Beijing also offered to provide assistance to its neighbour, and former bitter rival.

TransAsia, Taiwan's first private airline, also flies to China, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Vietnam and is due to launch the island's first low-cost airline later this year.

In October 2013, a Lao Airlines ATR-72 crashed during a heavy storm as it approached Pakse Airport in southern Laos, killing all 49 people on board.(Daily Mail)