NASA · Aviation Safety Reporting System
First Officer reported a near impact with an adjacent aircraft during pushback after the tug's tow bar snapped.
What is ASRS?
The Aviation Safety Reporting System is NASA's voluntary, confidential, non- punitive incident-reporting system, established 1976. Pilots, controllers, dispatchers, and maintenance technicians file reports describing safety- relevant events. NASA de-identifies every report before adding it to the public database. Reports are not investigated by NASA, the FAA, or the NTSB — they represent the reporter's perspective.
Pilot narrative
Verbatim from the de-identified NASA record. First-person account by the
reporter. NASA strips identifying details (names, company, specific time);
anonymization placeholders are ZZZ,
X, Y.
During pushback the tug driver pushed our aircraft extremely close to other aircraft parked at neighboring gates. We were cleared to pushback to spot XX. During the pushback I (FO) was watching the right wing walker, and he was giving a wand up the whole time we were moving. After we pushed back and we started to move forward, the tow pulled us forward I was watching the wing to make sure we were clear of a fuel truck. As I turned my head forward I mentioned to the Captain that the nose was very close to the tail of a parked plane. He said that sometimes parking is tight and did not appear concerned. As we made the left turn, I kept my eye on the right wing walker and he continued to give a thumbs up as we continued the turn. I told Captain again that we were pretty close, but still had a thumbs up. As the tug driver turned hard to move us away from the parked airplane, the tow bar snapped. The tug driver stopped the tug and the ground crew came to assist him. We set the parking brake and the Captain called ops about the tow bar and having maintenance meet us to inspect the wheel. Shortly thereafter, I assume ground crew supervisors were called and started to gather around tug and the right wing. After about 15 minutes, We were given clearance to be towed back to the gate for maintenance to check things out. When the maintenance person boarded, she said we had had a near miss with the parked aircraft. I know it may be experienced based, but it is difficult to tell how close we actually were to the aircraft. Also, we were operating on min rest and had had a max crew day the day before.
NASA classification — Anomalies
- Aircraft Equipment Problem
- Conflict
- Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural
- Ground Event / Encounter
NASA classification — Assessments
- Contributing Factors / Situations
- Company Policy · Equipment / Tooling · Human Factors · Procedure
- Primary Problem
- Ambiguous
ASRS reports are voluntarily submitted, de-identified by NASA, and represent the reporter's perspective. The presence of reports on a topic cannot be used to infer prevalence in the National Airspace System. The authoritative source is the NASA ASRS Database Online at asrs.arc.nasa.gov ↗.