Spooked flier: 'I thought this was it'

• Plane had issue with engine, airline says; actor tweets engine "exploded"


• Cabin filled with heavy smoke, passengers tell CNN affiliate


• Pilot made spot-on landing, according to man on plane

(CNN) -- A JetBlue flight with 147 people aboard made an emergency landing at a California airport on Thursday after an issue with one of its engines, a spokeswoman for the airline said.

Four people were injured when JetBlue Flight 1416 returned to Long Beach Airport, CNN affiliate KCAL reported, citing a fire official. One person who was having breathing difficulty went to the hospital, Jake Heflin of the Long Beach Fire Department told the station.

Actor Jackson Rathbone tweeted that he was on the flight with his wife and child and wrote, "Our right engine exploded and our cabin filled with smoke."

The smoke was so thick it was difficult to see the person next to them, two passengers told KCAL.

The plane was about 15 minutes into the flight and was over the ocean when the engined failed.

People's emotions went from anxious to terrified once the jet moved over land and began shaking on its descent, passengers said.

"Everyone was crying (then)," Dean Delbaugh said. "I thought this was it (and I was going to die)."

Oxygen masks failed to deploy, Rathbone tweeted, so flight attendants went around manually deploying them. They kept yelling, "Brace! Brace! Brace!" as the plane neared the runway.

The pilot made a perfect landing, given the circumstance, a passenger said.

"He put it on the numbers. He did good," Jarrod West told KCAL. "He came by afterwards and said, 'Hello' to everybody. All of us were hugging him and saying, 'Thank you' because it was scary for all of us. I'm just happy to be alive."

JetBlue spokeswoman Jessica Felipe said everyone evacuated the planes by using emergency slides.

The flight was headed from Long Beach to Austin, Texas, according to JetBlue's online schedule.