Air India Express hard landing
Air India Express flight IX938 (VT‑BWQ) from Hyderabad to Phuket suffered a hard landing — nose gear collapsed, wheels separated and the runway was damaged, forcing airport closure for recovery operations incident tweet.
The Boeing 737 MAX 8 registered VT‑BWQ flightradar24.com was operating flight IX938 from Hyderabad and touched down on runway 09 at 04:24 UTC (11:24 local) on March 11, 2026. Flight‑tracking logs show 131 passengers, two infants and seven crew — 140 people in total — were on board and were evacuated without injury, according to Flightradar24’s incident report. flightradar24.com Phuket International Airport issued a NOTAM listing runway 09/27 unavailable until 14:00 UTC (21:00 local), a restriction that flight‑tracking services said forced multiple inbound flights to divert; one live update put the number of diversions at about 20. flightradar24.com ADS‑B and transponder data show VT‑BWQ remained stationary on the runway and its transponder was turned off at about 05:44:54 UTC — roughly 80 minutes after touchdown, according to Flightradar24. flightradar24.com Air India Express issued a company statement saying, “We confirm that our Hyderabad‑Phuket flight on 11 March experienced an issue,” and added the crew “followed all standard protocols” while passengers were deplaned, per published reports quoting the airline. timesnownews.com India’s aviation regulator, the DGCA, said it would coordinate with Thai authorities on a formal probe into the March 11 incident, and Reuters reported Phuket’s governor later confirmed the airport’s sole runway had been reopened. theweek.in
