Photo: Nuno Inverno/Twitter

According to JN the 64-year-old doctor was travelling on the plane with his wife.

Latest reports state the pilot was Swiss, not French as origionally claimed.

The victim on the ground is understood to be a Portuguese lorry driver, and the other four victims are the pilot and three passengers; three French nationals and a Swiss national.

Nine people have also been left homeless following the incident.

The incident happened around noon on Monday, shortly after the plane took off from Tires Airdrome. It was reportedly en-route to Marseille, having arrived in Portugal last Friday from Geneva.

The aircraft crashed approximately 2,000 metres after take off, according to Portugal's air crash investigation bureau (GPIAAF), into a Lidl supermarket unloading bay, and 150 metres away from a local primary school.

It is thought the lorry driver killed in the accident was behind the wheel of a lorry that was unloading goods at the time.

Portugal's Civil Protection authority said "everything indicates there was an explosion mid-air", although eye-witnesss reports that have since emerged described the aircraft as spiralling out of control before crashing and exploding into a ball of fire.

The GPIAAF expects to have a preliminary report into the crash complete within 30 days.

In a statement, Cascais Aerodrome confirmed that “at 11.05am local time, the flight of private operator Symbios Orthopedic, a P-31 light aircraft that had taken off from Cascais Aerodrome bound for Marseilles with three passengers and one crew member on board, suffered an accident outside of the aerodrome airspace.

"The aerodrome immediately activated its emergency plans and in this way activated an internal and external response to this accident."

Portugal's President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa has visited the scene.

The fire caused after the plane crashed into buildings was extinguished at around 2pm.