An Air India Express aircraft experienced a malfunction and lost its wheels while landing at Phuket International Airport (HKT) in Thailand on Wednesday, March 11. Following the incident, the airport’s runway was temporarily closed to remove the aircraft.
Phuket Airport’s runway closed
The Air India Express Flight AXB938 arrived from Hyderabad, India, and sustained damage to its landing gear upon landing at Phuket.
The airline’s spokesperson said:
“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.”
After the incident, the airport’s runway was temporarily closed to allow for the safe removal of the aircraft. There were 133 passengers on board the Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft, and no casualties were reported.
According to AirNav Radar, the aircraft departed from Hyderabad at 6:42 a.m. local time, which is 22 minutes later than its scheduled time of 6:20 a.m., and arrived at Phuket Airport at 11:40 a.m. local time.
The runway was scheduled to reopen at 6 p.m., but was delayed and opened around 9 p.m. Though it caused delays to airport services, passengers are not eligible for compensation from airlines because the delays were not caused by the carriers themselves.
Many flights were diverted to the nearby airports because of the incident.
Air India aircraft and malfunctions
According to India’s Civil Aviation Ministry, Air India Express reported 95 technical faults from January 2025 to November 2025. This is the second-highest number of faults among Indian airlines over the period.
Recently, reports from the Indian parliament revealed that seven out of every 10 aircraft of the Air India Group’s fleet, parent company of Air India Express, have repeated technical faults. Inspectors found out about repetitive faults in 191 of the 267 aircraft operated by the group, which is the highest percentage among the airlines reviewed.
Since last year, Air India Group has been under heavy scrutiny after a series of incidents involving its aircraft.
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