A US airliner on a domestic flight with at least 152 people aboard has crashed into the Hudson River in New York City but with no loss of life.

All 148 passengers and the crew of at least four survived and were rescued from the sinking plane, the US Federal Aviation Administration confirmed.

The US Airways Airbus A320 crashed just after taking off from LaGuardia Airport heading for Charlotte, North Carolina.

Officials believe the plane may have collided with a flock birds.

"There is no indication that the incident is security-related," a homeland security official told the BBC.

Rescue boats plucked passengers, who could be seen wearing life jackets, from the wings of the plane.

A passenger who escaped from the aircraft told CNN: "A couple of minutes after taking off we heard a loud bang, the plane shook a bit and immediately we could smell smoke and fire."

Fox News also quoted passengers as saying that everyone from the plane had escaped alive.

A spokeswoman for the US Federal Aviation Authority, Laura Brown, said it was believed the plane had been in the air for three minutes after take-off when it crashed.

A man who witnessed the crash told ABC that the pilots' efforts had helped ensure a relatively soft landing on the water.

"From my window I saw the plane was coming down below the radar zone," he said.

"I thought it might be a terrorist attack or something but the plane looked like it had difficulty trying to... gain altitude but as it got closer to the water I saw the pilot, he made a last-ditch effort to try to gain altitude.

"And he did that for a few seconds and then the plane just came down and plopped on the water. Had he not done that he would have damaged the fuselage."