A US Airways aircraft has crashed into the Hudson River in New York after a flock of birds apparently disabled both its engines.

More than 150 passengers and crew members were rescued before the plane sank into freezing waters.

The Federal Aviation Administration said all 150 passengers and crew were rescued, however, a number of people were injured and taken to New York hospitals.

The jet, which crashed near several commuter ferries on the river, floated downstream until rescue boats arrived as hundreds watched from office towers overlooking the river.

Laura Brown, a Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman, said Flight 1549 had just taken off from LaGuardia Airport en route to Charlotte, North Carolina, when the crash occurred.

The pilot radioed flight controllers that he had hit birds a few miles (kilometres) from the airport, law enforcement sources told the Reuters news agency.

Passengers injured

A passenger told Reuters that a few minutes after the plane took off he heard what sounded like and explosion.

"The engine blew. There was fire everywhere and it smelled like gas," Jeff Kolodjay, from Norwalk, Connecticut, told Reuters on a midtown Manhattan quay.

He said the pilot announced that the plane was going down and told passengers to brace for the impact.

"People were bleeding all over. We hit the water pretty hard. It was scary."

The plane initially sank up to its windows, and passengers were taken off the craft into frigid water on one of the coldest days of the year, with temperatures around minus 6.7 degrees Celsius.

Rescuers in Coast Guard vessels and ferry boats opened the door and pulled passengers in yellow life vests from the aircraft.