The craft reportedly flipped over after the crash near Bahía Honda, about two hours from the capital of Havana.
Among the five known dead were a minor and three women, while about two dozen people were rescued, the state media outlet Cubadebate said.
Further details were not released, with Cuban officials telling the state channel that an investigation was underway.
The incident comes amid the biggest migratory flight from the Caribbean island in four decades, spurred by a deepening economic, political, and energy crisis.
Cuba’s Interior Ministry threw the blame on the US, saying the deaths were “another consequence” of American policy toward Cuba, including the 60-year embargo.
The vast majority of Cubans who are leaving go by plane to Nicaragua, then travel overland to the US border, often in Texas and Arizona.
But a growing number have fled by boat on the dangerous 90-mile journey to the southern coast of the United States. Between October 2021 and August 2022, the US Coast Guard intercepted more than 4,600 Cubans traveling by boat, almost six times more than in all of 2020.
RHM/PR
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