Eleven people, including six US service personnel, were killed when a US Air Force C-130J transport plane crashed in Afghanistan.

The plane crashed at Jalalabad Airfield in eastern Afghanistan at about midnight local time.

A spokesman for the 455th Air Expeditionary Wing at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan said six US service members who comprised the plane's crew died, along with five civilian passengers.

The US military said the cause of the crash was under investigation.

There are about 1,000 coalition forces in eastern Afghanistan, including US and Polish forces, as well as about 40,000 Afghan troops, according to Nato.

The US has about 9,800 troops in Afghanistan, although the numbers are expected to go down a bit by the end of the year.