Delta 747 shunts tow-tractor

None of the ground equipment would have been visible from the cockpit, and it doesn’t look like anyone was on intercom.

Cking, I know certain aircraft move forward without advancing the throttles so is it possible there was some kind of brake problem and the aircraft moved with the engines at idle?

Either way, someone needs their backside kicking!

On a sloping ramp maybe but when it hit the tractor it would have stoped. The tractor was pushed quite a distance before the crew realized there was a problem. If you notice, the groundcrew scatter before the aircraft starts to roll. The aircrew would have to apply quite a bit of power to start the aircraft moving, (called breakaway power) The groundcrew must have heard this and got clear.
The thing that the ground crew did do wrong was not establishing headset contact with the aircrew. On hearing the throttles being advanced a quick “OI!!” would have stopped him!

Rgds Cking

Cking, I know certain aircraft move forward without advancing the throttles so is it possible there was some kind of brake problem and the aircraft moved with the engines at idle?

Either way, someone needs their backside kicking!

Why the Captain..maybe it was the first officer ..maybe it was “REPO”

Looks like the captains fault… groundcrew signal him to stop and looks like brakes confirmed signal prior to installing the towbar.. possibly a case of why are they taking so long and moving onto the gte by himself?

Lets not hang anybody ’till the investigation findings

If you are being towed onto stand by the ground crew, you don’t just advance your throttles and try and taxi on regardless. Who ever advanced the throttles on this aircraft could have killed someone. HE NEEDS HIS A**E KICKING!!!:mad:

Rgds Cking

Lets not hang anybody ’till the investigation findings

More to the point, what was the damage to the pilots face? If that had happened to me I would have been up the nose gear, in through the lower avionics bay, through the first class, up the stairs into the flight deck and punched him into next week!

Rgds Cking

Just to answer my own question, and to provide the answer for anyone else that may want to know, the reason the aircraft was being towed-in on stand is because some gates at airports like JFK/EWR/LAX are smaller and closer together than over here in the UK, so to avoid wing-tip damage aircraft are towed-in rather than just pulling up on their own power!

Interestingly enough, the damage sustained to the aircraft was minimal, so much so that it was back in service 6hrs later.;)

I am rather baffled as to why they are having to attach the tow-tractor to the aircraft in the first place?!:confused:

If my understanding is correct, the aircraft is coming onto the stand…so surely it would do this on its own power and use the guidence system associated to the gate which tells how much further the aircraft is allowed to go?

If the particular stand in use doesn’t have said guidence system, then usually it would get marshalled in, not towed-in, right?

Not good! I know the 747 is several hundred tons of aircraft but it’s incredible how easily it shifts a tug that itself probably weighs 60-80 tons. I wonder what kind of damage it did to the nosegear assembly, I’m assuming it’s not really designed to handle stresses like that?

Tis on Liveleak. Saw it a few days again. Someone is getting a pink slip methinks