An American Airlines flight headed to Miami made an emergency landing in Tampa on Thursday after reports of smoke in the cockpit, the Tampa Bay Times reported.
The incident occurred around 9:15 p.m. and the plane landed safely at 9:20 p.m., according to airline spokeswoman Janet Zink. Fire rescue officials arrived at the scene and no injuries were reported.
The flight was carrying 50 passengers and left from Tallahassee, Zink said.
On Thursday night, the cause of the smoke was still unknown.
Alberto Carvalho, superintendent of Miami-Dade Schools, was one of the passengers on board and live-tweeted the incident.
"In for emergency landing after taking off from Tallahassee after loud explosion and smoke. Attempting to land in Tampa," Carvalho tweeted.
Thirteen minutes later, he uploaded another tweet saying the frightening incident was under control.
"Landed in Tampa after lengthy maintenance delay in Tally and explosion and smoke forced a tense aggressive landing. Safe," he said.
At 10:05 p.m., he posted a "selfie" taken inside of Tampa International Airport with a group of people including U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Miami).
According to CBS Miami, Carvalho said an explosion was the reason behind the smoke and caused the pilots to descend 10,000 feet in just one minute.
He also said a 19-year-old student who was sitting next to him on the plane helped him through the stressful ordeal.
"Her father happens to be a pilot for American Airlines so she knows a little something about flying and she told me this is not good and she thought that this was the end,. I hugged her, I held her hand and in the end everything turned out ok," Carvalho told CBS Miami.
