None of the 157 people on board an Ethiopian Airlines flight that crashed on Sunday morning en route from Addis Ababa to Nairobi have survived, the airline said.

Ethiopian Airlines Group CEO Tewolde GebreMariam "deeply regrets the fatal accident," the airline said on its Twitter account.

The group CEO, who had travelled to the scene of the crash, expressed his "profound sympathy and condolences" to the families of all victims, the statement read.

The tweet by Ethiopian Airlines was accompanied by a picture of GebreMariam lifting what appeared to be a piece debris at the bottom of a large crater in an empty field. 

Thirty-three nationalities were on board flight ET 302, which crashed near the town of Bishoftu, about 50km southeast of the Ethiopian capital, Ethiopia's state broadcaster reported.

Thirty-two Kenyans and 17 Ethiopians are among the dead, an Ethiopian Airlines spokesperson said. There was no immediate confirmation of which other nationalities were on board.

The plane took off at 8:38am (06:38 GMT) from Bole International Airport and "lost contact" six minutes later near Bishoftu.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's office tweeted it "would like to express its deepest condolences to the families of those that have lost their loved ones on Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 on regular scheduled flight to Nairobi, Kenya this morning."