India, March 12 -- An Air India Express Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, with 138 people onboard, lost both its nose wheels after a suspected hard landing at Phuket airport on Wednesday, leaving the aircraft stranded on the runway for hours and forcing a temporary halt to airport operations, officials aware of the matter said.

The aircraft VT-BWQ operated the flight IX938 from Hyderabad to Phuket.

A hard landing in aviation is when an aircraft touches down on the runway with a higher than normal vertical speed.

It could not be immediately ascertained for how many hours the aircraft was stuck on the runway, as well as for how long the airport operations were suspended. "The aircraft involved in a hard landing incident with a bounce on runway 9 ...