Three more civilians were injured when the MiG-23 ground-attack plane slammed into their homes in Ludhiana district's overcrowded Mullanpur area, Indian air force spokesman squadron leader Rakesh Dhingra told AFP.

"The engine caught fire shortly after the aircraft took off from the Halwara airbase in Ludhiana district of Punjab," he told AFP.

The pilot ejected as the plane began breaking up in the sky and was injured after hitting the ground, airforce sources said.

Among those killed were two women, one of them pregnant, a teenaged boy and an infant who was buried under the rubble, officials at the site said.

Dhingra said the debris fell on two houses but others reported damage to five residential complexes in Mullanpur which is near the Halwara base, some 350 kilometers (220 miles) north of Delhi.

The houses caught fire.

The airforce rushed officials to the site with compensation to families of those killed, Dhingra said, as Punjab state Chief Minister Amrinder Singh announced separate compensation packages to those affected.

Friday's crash took to seven the number of Indian military jets that have crashed in the two adjoining states of Punjab and Haryana in the past year, killing a total of 21 civilians and a pilot, officials said.

Twelve people were killed on the ground when another fighter jet slammed into a tiny village near Ambala in November last year.

The Indian Air Force, the world's fourth largest, has been plagued by mishaps, particularly with its ageing fleet of MiG aircraft.

Official figures show at least 221 MiGs, worth tens of millions of dollars, were lost in crashes between 1991 and 2000, killing about 100 Indian pilots.

A high-level meeting chaired by Defence Minister George Fernandes in November decided to phase out the ageing MiG-21 fleet.

SPACE.WIRE