A rescuer works on the crash site on Tuesday.-Xinhua/Reuters

A Colombian airliner with 152 passengers and eight crew members on board crashed in western Venezuela on early Tuesday, local television reports said.

Most of the passengers were said to be French and Venezuelan, Interior Minister Jesse Chacon said it was unlikely that there could be any survivor.

"According to our estimates, the plane crashed in Sierra de Perija between 3 a.m. (0700 GMT) and 3:45 a.m. (0745 GMT)," Chacon told local television.

He said the airliner which was en route from Panama to the French Caribbean island territory of Martinique suffered engine trouble before coming down between two farms in the western border state of Zulia.

A spokesman for the French civil aviation authority said there were 153 French passengers on the chartered flight.

Meanwhile, a brief statement from the West Caribbean Airways said eight crew members were also aboard.

The statement said the crash occurred some 30 km from Venezuela's border with Colombia, adding the jet was an MD82.

It was the second accident involving the Colombian airline so far this year. In March, another of its planes crashed during takeoff from the Colombian island of Old Providence, killing eight people and injuring six passengers.