Originally Posted by jote
I heard that yesterday an aircraft went TEC during pushback at EGBB, the captain requested he be pulled back to stand, the nose of the aircraft was then seen to be bouncing up and down. The “shear pin” I think it’s called sheared and the aircraft continued towards the tug, a shout to the flight deck eventually brought things to a stop. I am curious as to what experiences others have of this type of incident and how common this type of failure is.
If this was the incident that I heard about (horses mouth) then the scene was thus.... a/c cleared to push back subject to an a/c taxiing away from behind, Capt. relayed this and was asked to release brakes. Tuggy started the push, Capt realised that criteria for push not met, and relayed info to ground. Ground relayed info to tug, tug braked rather sharply, shear pin failed, a/c carried on, Capt stopped a/c (gently) with brakes, nose bobbed up and down a little. Lead to delays as the engineers had to have a good look at the nose wheel, which was undamaged. Conclusion, shear pin did the job it is designed to do as a/c was undamaged.