Hit the Brakes or Not?

Bandit_Driver

Gold Member
Hypothetical scenario

You are being pushed by back in mainline Narrow body aircraft
You notice your wing is going to hit another plane
Verbal and hand signals to stop are heard/seen by ground crew

Do you step on the brakes?

Does supertug or tow bar make a difference in the decision.
 
Hypothetical scenario

You are being pushed by back in mainline Narrow body aircraft
You notice your wing is going to hit another plane
Verbal and hand signals to stop are heard/seen by ground crew

Do you step on the brakes?

Does supertug or tow bar make a difference in the decision.
If you've made verbal stop commands it should be on your CVR at that point. Visual hand signals might be on a ramp camera. If they don't stop it's on them.

I would not hit the brakes unless I absolutely (absolutely) knew impact was definitely going to happen, and I would do it slowly if possible so the tug driver might feel it and think about it for a second and maybe hit the brakes himself. If I'm wrong about the potential impact and bust a tow bar shear pin I'm probably in trouble.

If it's a small tug I would figure I have a slight chance to change things if I tap the breaks. Supertug, no point in trying the brakes.
 
I have a similar though process on it. I'd also be considered about dumping it on its rear or possible collapsing the nose gear.

Saw CRJ many moons ago at Dulles get its nose gear ripped off by a tug.
 
If it were my personal aircraft, yea maybe I’d try braking. The airline’s plane? They could rip the wing off for all I care. I haven’t been trained in braking while getting pushed, nor is it in any manual of mine. Something goes wrong with my “ stunt” and it’s on me.
 
We’re basically going with “mess up one airplane versus mess up two.” I bet a winglet is cheaper than a nose gear.
Plus like other said, they’re in control of the plane. That’s why there’s wing walkers and usually a marshaller. If they don’t do their job that’s on them.
 
I have had a tow bar break before while being pushed. Had to slowly bring it to a stop while going backwards.
 
Nope. The torque on a tug (not to mention the fact they weigh tens of thousands of lbs) will absolutely rip the gear right apart. And that’s on you at that point. If you get lucky, the tow bar will sheer at the sheer bolt first. But, if it doesn’t?
 
We used to do a manpowered "pushback" in the legacy Hornet on the flight deck (can't do it in a super or growler due to GW and I think possible damage to composite surfaces, have to do it with a tug). It wasn't pretty like an airline pushback......amounted to all the nearby folks on the flight deck swarming your jet and collectively pushing the thing back by hand. But if the yellow shirt/director wasn't clear with their signals, sometimes you'd stomp the brakes and all 20+ of those poor sailors would be fighting you. Unlike this scenario, they never won over the brakes. I love thinking about doing this at night with all the lights off (airplanes still landing), with no real frame of reference of how close the mains were from the edge of the flight deck (they were pushing you backwards from the regular part of the flight deck, to as close to the edge as they could get you). I might have been a little jumpy once or twice on the brakes at the first indication of a stop signal :)
 
Hypothetical scenario

You are being pushed by back in mainline Narrow body aircraft
You notice your wing is going to hit another plane
Verbal and hand signals to stop are heard/seen by ground crew

Do you step on the brakes?

Does supertug or tow bar make a difference in the decision.
It's the "modern" world.
If doing nothing protects you, even if you're certain of the outcome, NEVER do the right thing if there exists the slightest chance you might get blamed. ;)
 
It's the "modern" world.
If doing nothing protects you, even if you're certain of the outcome, NEVER do the right thing if there exists the slightest chance you might get blamed. ;)
How do they secure the aircraft when they’re on the edge like that? I assume chocks don’t do the trick when you have rolling seas.
 
How do they secure the aircraft when they’re on the edge like that? I assume chocks don’t do the trick when you have rolling seas.
Yeah, hitting the brakes would be one of the surest ways of securing the A/C if it's rolling in an untoward direction.

However, if hitting the brakes can be characterized by an attorney as having exacerbated the preexisting Clauswitzian Frission- especially in a fashion in which the positive effect of hitting the brakes is rendered indistinguishable from, or having contributed to, all the other failures that already took place- then guess who gets blamed?? That's right... the alert and responsible guy who hit the brakes!

It's kinda -imperfectly- like a multi-car pile up; The last guy in the accordion squeeze to hit the rear bumper of the car in front of him usually takes the preponderance of blame for the whole CF.

Sad, but true in our modern "personal accountability" world. See @mikecweb, just above.

"On the edge" is for military-themed cinema. Work life is all about stable tugging - in which all participants proceed with the awareness and alacrity of docile sheep.
 
Last edited:
^ Reminds me of driving to work the other morning. Beautiful sunny dry day, hardly any traffic. We are on a 2 lane highway with a 50 mph speed limit. Older PT Cruiser is in front, older Dodge pickup behind them, and I'm behind the truck. We're already going 45 in the 50, though truck and myself are doing a good job of not tailgating. As we approach a traffic light/intersection, PT cruiser begins slowing down (with a green light mind you) and manages to slow down long enough that the light turns yellow a few yards before they cross the intersection. What do they do? SLAM on the brakes, and come skidding to a stop just barely before the middle of the intersection. Guy in truck reacts quickly, locks up his brakes, and is forced to swerve partly into the oncoming traffic lane to avoid re-ending the PT cruiser. I have to brake a little, but by then, I'd already seen it coming.....person dumb enough to slow down for no reason whatsoever approaching a green light is about to do something really unpredictable and equally or more dumb....which they did. Could easily have caused a 3 car pile up because (I'm guessing here), somewhere in life, probably growing up on this rural island, that driver was taught to always slow down before an intersection. And then they nonsensically decided, F everyone behind me, I need to panic brake to not legally run a yellow light. People like that should be the ones paying for the insurance deductible and furthermore, should need to satisfactorily pass a check ride at the DMV before they get their license back.....in my ideal world of course. Same goes for people who were taught to treat yield signs as stop signs, and unpredictably brake to a full stop for no reason whatsoever. Unpredictable drivers are the cause of the majority of accidents I'd say. Normally the drivers who are unpredictably overly "cautious".....when in fact they are creating a situation where they are more likely to have an accident. /rant
 
Back when I worked the ramp almost 20 years ago, a Mesa crew inadvertently tapped the brakes on a Dash 8 while getting pushed by one of those red scoopy nosewheely tugs. The tug submarined the nosewheel and ended up kind of jackknifed almost as far as one of the moving propellor. Lucky nobody got hurt.

The only circumstance I can think of in which I’d hit the brakes while under push is if the tow bar was confirmed completely disconnected or broken somehow. Anything else and you risk hurting someone down below.
 
Back
Top