Love how the airbus ended up in pieces and the Boeing just had a "scratch".
Says a lot.

Makes no difference. Humans are humans. There was a incident in Brisbane where a wing tip hit a pole and one in Melbourne where the tow bar broke and the guy guarding the brakes did nothing and tore a hole down the side of the aircraft. Both Engineers.

Is it me or are virgin winglets getting taller and taller? Are they getting so big as to obstruct ground staff views? :rolleyes::hmm:

I'm sure that Boeing require a separation of 50 feet of an aircraft APU exhaust and the wing tip of a moving/towing aircraft due to the wing fuel tank vent/nacca scoop.

S7OIP,
The incident you mention that happened in Brisbane. The Poll must've been very tall with a very hard head. Was he/she from Krakow?:D

I have to agree with Zephyrus.

Airlines these days contract work out to companies that have absolutely no Airline culture, train them to the minima and actually introduce operating systems that mean they don't have to do more than rudimentary instruction.

I have had bag snatchers help on load and trim issues, do the start up, marshall aeroplanes in, handle the phones and computer and they did it magnificently BECAUSE THEY WERE PART OF THE AIRLINE AND THEY WANTED TO HELP!!!

One doesn't pledghe allegience to an Airline that would lose you in a second if they could outsource or automate the job.

However, despite the lack of "rats' arse" in general by the Airlines today, a little duty of care does still apply and a sound butt kicking would be warranted.

Best all

EWL

You reckon this'll change anything? Insurance will pay for it, neither of the airlines will give a rats arse ;)

That's right, Jack.

This won't change anything about how airlines do business. The legals will be sorted out and the blame game will start and finish with a head kicked.
Get the LAME's back doing this job as this is a prime example of what happens when a skills base is removed from the equation.
It's fortunate that a costly incident such as this is a result of improper gound handling rather than an event in the air.

Even if both airlines had to pay cash for repairs, the money saved by having contracted rampies doing pushes vs engineers would be absolutely astounding.

Hence why engineers are not doing pushbacks.

The good old days are gone.

VA have their own rampies doing the domestic side. Now lets have a look here, there are multiple failings here and a bit of the ownership needs to be placed elsewhere.

The aircraft parking conditions are a major factor here, VGR was pulling into D2 and YID was pushing off E1. Now the first thing to look at here is that E1 and D2 can not be clearly seen from either bay due to the new terminal expansion. There is a light that says that an aircraft is pushing however not arriving.

Second issue, ATC had cleared the driver to push once VGR had parked, now I refer back to the last paragraph and the driver, acting under instruction of the ATCO would have trouble seeing VGR and thus should of had the knowledge to separate the clearances.

Third issue, the JQ pilot SHOULD of advised over the GND that they were holding short of the bay due to what ever the cause was. Thus ATC could of canx the clearance for YID and recleared once VGR proceeded to the full stop position.

Fourth issue, not as relevant however the current works on at D6 has played some part to this with the change in pushback procedures.

It's all well and easy to place sole blame on the driver but understand the facts before you got and solely accuse a single party for all issues.

Does SMC talk directly to the pushback drivers at YMML?

Because of the works yes.

+1 EWL.................

Bloggs everyone but Virgin where it's through the headset

ASY68, Thanks for the informative post.

Can anyone confirm that there was no Engineer involved in the pushback?
I am dead against removing LAME's from the pushback procedure which is what is happening all around the world now.

ASY68,
An engineer on a headset, in control of the pushback, takes all of the "factors" that you raise as contributing to the incident into account while carrying out the task at hand.

new procedures to come.......
 

aeroplanes will have to wear safety vests.....

It has to be assumed that humans ( tug drivers and ATC, pilots) will make mistakes because they will, guaranteed. With that in mind these fallable Humans need to work within ' error tolerant systems'.
Who is responsible for the systems?
Not the people operationally involved.
It would surprises me if the ethos driving the move towards replacing Engineers on pushback ( a change to the system) wasn't the same ethos that meant the Jetstar aircraft had to hold short of the gate. ie we can reduce staff numbers and get more work out of people and therefore be more efficient.
So in my mind these decisions to make the system less error tolerent are the greatest concern or causal factor.
Someone mentioned Insurance companies. If they refuse to pay out it might make the KPI chasers sit up a bit.
Framer
Ps I am not suggesting that operational staff aren't responsible for doing their job properly, just pointing out that it goes deeper than the ramp environment.

I would imagine that ATC cleared Virgin to push once the Jetstar A320 was on the bay, which would have been relayed from the flight deck to the guy on the headset. I doubt that the guy on the headset would have been able to see the tarmac markings from where he was & probably couldn't see the NIGS as well, so assumed that the 320 was on position when it stopped.

If there was no wing-walker, it would be difficult to judge the clearance at the wingtip. From the flight deck it often looks awfully close, so it would be the same for him. He possibly assumed that the wingtip was clear even though it looked close, because he thought that the 320 was on the bay. No excuse, but when the picture often looks like that & on time performance is heavily pushed by management, people just tend to rely on past experience, rather than double checking.

I would not be surprised to find that the major problem here is that the 320 didn't advise ATC that it was holding short of the bay. It has happened a number of times around the world. If they didn't feel that they needed to advise ATC for some reason, the pushback clearance to the 737 should have alerted them to the fact that someone was pushing behind them & then they should have advised ATC. Some seem to think they operate in a vacuum & really need to lift their situational awareness. They need to know where the various bays are around the bay they are going on to & listen to ALL radio transmissions, not just on the ground, but in the air as well.