Description

On 26 June 2006, after an uneventful pre flight pushback of a British Airways Airbus A320-200 at London Heathrow Airport using a towbarless tractor, that unit was disconnected from the aircraft. After receiving taxi clearance from ATC, the aircraft started moving under its own power and, shortly afterwards, collided with the tractor that had just performed the pushback, damaging both the right engine and the tractor. The headset operator had given the ‘all clear’ signal to the flight crew before the tractor had been repositioned to a safe distance from the aircraft. The co-pilot did not see the tractor and a defect was found to have prevented the tractor from being driven away before the aircraft began to taxi.

Investigation Findings

An Annex 13 Serious Incident Investigation was carried out by the UK AAIB and their Report was published in May 2007. It was concluded that “The primary causal factor of the accident was the headset operator giving the ‘all clear’ signal to the flight crew before the tractor had been repositioned to a safe distance from the aircraft. Contributory factors were the co-pilot failing to see the tractor and a defect which prevented the tractor from being driven away once the aircraft had begun to taxi. In the light of safety actions taken by the aircraft operator, no AAIB Safety Recommendations were deemed necessary.

Related Articles

• Pushback

Further Reading

• For further information see the full UK AAIB Report