An Air India Express flight travelling from Hyderabad to Phuket made a hard landing at Phuket International Airport in Thailand on March 11, resulting in damage to the aircraft's nose landing gear. Airport authorities temporarily closed the runway following the incident to clear the aircraft and carry out safety checks, NDTV reported.
The aircraft involved in the incident was a Boeing 737 MAX 8 operated by the airline. The flight had 133 passengers on board at the time of landing.
All passengers were safely evacuated after the aircraft came to a stop and were moved to a passenger waiting area at the airport.
According to sources cited by NDTV, the aircraft experienced a problem while landing, which caused the nose landing gear to break. As a result, the aircraft slid along the runway before coming to a stop. Photos from the scene showed the broken nose wheel lying on the runway.
Air India Express update on Phuket hard landing: The nosewheel has been installed, allowing normal ops to resume at the airport pic.twitter.com/T6lt1DJ5Ty
— Jagriti Chandra (@jagritichandra) March 11, 2026
Emergency response teams and airport officials quickly reached the site to secure the area and ensure the safety of passengers and crew members, the report added.
Following the incident, Phuket Airport issued a NOTAM (Notice to Air Mission) closing the runway for several hours. The closure was necessary to remove the aircraft from the runway and conduct safety inspections. Airport authorities said the closure could affect some flight operations, said the report.
The nose wheel is a main component of an aircraft's landing gear system. It helps support the forward section of the aircraft and plays a key role in steering during taxiing, takeoff and landing.
Air India Express later confirmed the incident in a statement. “We confirm that our Hyderabad-Phuket flight on March 11 experienced an issue with the nose wheel at Phuket Airport. The crew followed all standard protocols, and guests were deplaned. We thank our guests, the Phuket airport authorities, and all stakeholders for their cooperation,” the airline spokesperson was quoted as saying by NDTV.
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Flight IX 938 departed from Hyderabad at 6.42 am, slightly later than its scheduled departure time of 6.20 am. According to the flight tracking website Flightradar24, the aircraft landed at Phuket International Airport at around 11.40 am local time.
The flight tracking site also reported that It was operating its first flight of the day after arriving in Hyderabad from Guwahati the previous evening.
Later, the nose wheels were installed again, allowing airport operations to resume normally.
The airline also stated that the matter would be examined as per established procedures. “We apologise for the incident, which will be investigated in accordance with established procedures,” the spokesperson added.
According to the videos seen on social media and data cited by FlightRadar24, the aircraft bounced after the first touchdown before making contact with the runway again. It then continued moving along the runway before coming to a stop.
Nosed!
— manisha singhal (@manishasinghal) March 11, 2026
This video, supposedly of the Air India Express flight landing at #Phuket airport is doing rounds … the airline did not verify it as the same aircraft involved in the incident and am no expert but this looks bad and and a very hard landing , not at all as desired.… pic.twitter.com/RFK6VKoPYF
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The airline later confirmed that the nose landing gear failed during touchdown. Images from the scene showed both nose wheels separated from the aircraft, with the main strut appearing to make direct contact with the runway surface.
Air India Express update on Phuket hard landing: The nosewheel has been installed, allowing normal ops to resume at the airport pic.twitter.com/T6lt1DJ5Ty
— Jagriti Chandra (@jagritichandra) March 11, 2026
The aircraft stopped on the runway and was unable to taxi away from the landing area.
Following the incident, several passengers recorded videos from inside the aircraft and shared them on social media platforms.
In one of the videos, a passenger recording a video on his phone drops it due to the sudden bumpy landing and then picks it up while describing what happened, saying, “I literally felt the bump.”
Passenger's recording of the Air India aircraft which slammed down on runway in Phuket.
— Man Aman Singh Chhina (@manaman_chhina) March 11, 2026
pic.twitter.com/uDiltKnNMx
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Another social media user who claimed to be on the flight wrote about the landing experience. “I was filming our landing on Air India Express flight IX 938 from Hyderabad to Phuket when we hit the runway really hard. It was such a bad landing that you could actually smell something burning inside the plane. I think it's with front wheel.”
@airindia @AirIndiaX @ndtv @aajtak
— Minal Ahuja (@imminal35) March 11, 2026
I was filming our landing on Air India Express flight IX 938 from Hyderabad to Phuket when we hit the runway really hard. It was such a bad landing that you could actually smell something burning inside the plane. I think it's with front wheel. pic.twitter.com/IaFgjqy3Na
Several other videos and photographs of the aircraft and the runway incident have also appeared on social media following the landing.
Video: An Air India Express Boeing 737-800 (flight AXB938) from Hyderabad made a hard landing at Phuket Airport. https://t.co/atIYlDFD9H pic.twitter.com/74BCHvhE6c
— Elite Predators (@elitepredatorss) March 11, 2026
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