Local resident Ricky Brown said he was in his bathroom shaving when he heard the noise of the crash.

"I just looked around and saw over the hill side. I saw the flash of light and then the explosion and then just a big plume of smoke come up," he told Fox News television.

The lone survivor was transported to the University of Kentucky Medical Center, Gary Ginn, Fayette County Coroner, told CNN.

"It was a firey incident," he said.

The plane, a 50-seat Bombardier CRJ200 regional jet, departed at 6:10 am and crashed "approximately a half mile (one kilometer) from the end of the runway in Lexington," Comair president Don Bornhorst told a news conference in Kentucky carried live in television.

"From our officials at the scene we do have the confirmation of one surviving member of the passenger or crew group," Bornhorst said.

Witnesses reported seeing a flash of light when the crash occurred, according to local media.

Meteorolgists reported that although the flight, scheduled for 6:00 am, took off before dawn, the weather was clear at the airport at that time.

Bornhorst said that National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration investigators were on the scene, but had no information on what brought the plane down.

"We are committed to doing everything humanly possible to find out the cause of this accident," he said in an emotional voice.

He added that there was no "weather challenge" that caused the accident.

The names of passengers were not released, he said, pending notification of next of kin.

"We cannot speculate on the cause of the accident."

He said that the crew had flown the plane for some time, and that Comair had purchased it new.