(CNN) — Smoke in the passenger cabin of a JetBlue plane that made an emergency landing Wednesday night at Newark Liberty International Airport led to passengers evacuating onto the tarmac and temporarily shut down the airport.

JetBlue flight 543 took off shortly after 5:30 p.m. Wednesday heading to West Palm Beach, the Port Authority told CNN.

The airline says the Airbus A320 had an “engine issue” and there was smoke in the cabin. After 17 minutes in flight, it made an emergency landing back at Newark.

“We’re just going to exit the runway and have fire / rescue make sure the engine, number one engine, is OK,” a pilot told air traffic controllers in audio captured by the website LiveATC.net.

Just a few minutes after landing, the smoke in the cabin prompted the pilot to call for an evacuation.

“We got smoke in the back. We are going to have to be evacuating here in a second,” the pilot said.

“He’s going to pull the chutes,” an emergency responder outside the plane warned the tower, referencing the deployment of the emergency exit slides.

“Attention all aircraft, Newark Airport is closed,” air traffic controller announced.

No injuries were reported, and the Federal Aviation Administration issued a ground stop, halting flights headed to the airport until about 7 p.m. ET.

“Safety is JetBlue’s top priority,” the airline said in a statement. “We are focused on supporting our customers and crewmembers and will work closely with the appropriate federal authorities to investigate what occurred.”

The FAA is investigating.

The-CNN-Wire
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