A Philippine military C-130 plane that crashed in Patikul town, Jolo province, southern Philippines on Sunday. Photo: VCG

Philippine security forces searched among coconut trees on a remote southern island Monday for the flight data boxes of an aircraft that crashed and killed 50 people in one of the country's worst military air disasters.

The C-130 Hercules transport plane was carrying 96 people, most of them recent army graduates, when it overshot the runway on Sunday while trying to land on Jolo island in Sulu province - a haven for Islamist militants.

The plane "skidded" and burst into flames in a village, killing 50 people including 47 military personnel and three civilians, said military spokesman Major General Edgard Arevalo.

Another 53 were injured, most of them soldiers. It was not clear if the pilots were among the survivors. "This is one of the worst tragic incidents that happened in our armed forces," Arevalo said. 

Dental records were being used to help identify the charred remains of victims. 

The three civilians killed were not on the flight and had been working in a quarry, village leader Tanda Hailid told AFP. Photos of the scene released by the military's Joint Task Force-Sulu showed the damaged tail and smoking wreckage scattered in a coconut grove. "We have people on the ground to make sure the integrity of the pieces of the evidence that we will retrieve, most particularly the flight data recorder," Arevalo said.

The second-hand Hercules that crashed Sunday was acquired from the US and delivered to the Philippines in earlier 2021.