FAA spokesman Lynn Lunsford said it was flight No. 214, and she said it was unclear how many people were on board.
Images from television station KTVU in San Francisco showed extensive fire damage to the airplane, which had lost its tail in the crash. Fire engines were on the scene and the fire, which had burned through the cabin's roof, appeared to be out.
An observer from a nearby hotel said he saw the plane cartwheel down the runway and the tail fly off.
"You heard a pop and you immediately saw a large, brief fireball that came out from underneath the aircraft," Anthony Castorani said on CNN.
"At that moment, you could see that that aircraft was again starting to lift and it began to cartwheel ... You could see the tail immediately fly off of the aircraft," he said.
The weather at the airport was clear at the time of the crash.
The National Transportation Safety Board said on its Twitter feed that it was sending an investigative team to the scene of the crash. The FAA also said it was sending investigators to the scene, spokeswoman Laura Brown said.
The airport was closed but one runway could be opened shortly, Brown said.
(Reporting by Jackie Frank and Toni Clarke in Washington, Kevin Gray in Miami; Editing by Eric Beech, Eric Walsh and Jackie Frank)
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