A small plane with four people on board crashed in the central Philippines on Sunday, sparking a frantic search for survivors, an aviation official said.

The Cessna 340 aircraft went missing early on Saturday morning shortly after departing for Manila from Bicol International Airport, south of the capital, the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) said in a statement.

The plane was carrying two passengers, a pilot and one crew member, the aviation regulator added.

CAAP spokesperson Eric Apolonio said a local search and rescue team had identified a possible crash site near the airport.

"The problem is the weather is bad and it hampers the visibility of the ground search," he added.

The aviation accident comes less than a month after another Cessna plane went missing on January 24 in the northern province of Isabela. A search for that plane's wreckage is still ongoing, Apolonio said.

In a separate incident, two Philippine airforce aviators were also killed in a training exercise last month when their SF260 Marchetti plane plummeted onto a rice paddy in Bataan province, near Manila. (AFP)