Twilight actor Jackson Rathbone on JetBlue flight that makes emergency landing

Actor Jackson Rathbone in a cinema still from The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, with co-star Nikki Reed. He revealed in a series of Twitter posts that he was on a JetBlue plane which made an emergency landing in California on Thursday. -- PHOTO:
Actor Jackson Rathbone in a cinema still from The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, with co-star Nikki Reed. He revealed in a series of Twitter posts that he was on a JetBlue plane which made an emergency landing in California on Thursday. -- PHOTO: SHAW 

LOS ANGELES (REUTERS) - Actor Jackson Rathbone, best known for his role as a vampire in the Twilight films, said in a series of Twitter posts that he was on a JetBlue plane which made an emergency landing in the US on Thursday.

At least four people were injured when the plane made an emergency landing at the airport in Long Beach, California, and passengers were evacuated by slides, an airport spokeswoman said.

JetBlue Flight 1416, which had just departed for Austin, Texas, with 142 passengers and five crew members, returned to Long Beach after pilots got an overheating warning for one of the engines, Long Beach Airport spokeswoman Stephanie Montuya-Morisky said.

She said all passengers were evacuated from the plane by slides after it landed at 9.30am. Four passengers were treated at the scene for minor injuries and one was taken to a hospital, she said.

Said Rathbone in one tweet: "Our right engine exploded and our cabin filled with smoke."

In another, he said: "The oxygen masks did not deploy, but the brave stewardesses came around and manually deployed them.

"It was rough, the plane was rocking."

Rathbone said that once the plane was on the ground he grabbed his son and jumped down an inflatable ramp with his wife following.

JetBlue said in a written statement that the flight returned to Long Beach Airport after the crew reported an issue with the No. 2 engine.

The statement said the plane landed safely and that everyone evacuated on emergency slides.

The airline said no injured were reported at the time.

A runway was shut down at the airport, about 40km south of Los Angeles, while passengers were removed from the disabled plane but was reopened about two hours later.

Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.