37000 Feet

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B757 flight crew and ground personnel reported the elevator unknowingly struck a building during pushback and flew two flights with the undetected damage.

Narrative:

I was notified several hours after the termination of our flight; that the elevator on our airplane had received significant damage during pushback on our first leg departing.sometime during our pushback on our initial leg; the aircraft made contact with an object/structure that caused damage to the elevator. I did not feel anything out of the ordinary that indicated some type of impact during pushback nor was the flight crew notified by the pushback crew that an impact had occurred. I did not feel any abnormalities through the flight controls or the airplane during all stages of flight on the first leg when I was the pilot flying. On the second leg (throughout the entire flight) I did not feel or notice any abnormalities with the aircraft while I was performing duties as the pilot monitoring. The first officer did not mention that he noticed or felt anything abnormal with the aircraft during the entire trip. The first officer performed preflights at both stations.the alarming thing about this situation is that an airplane unworthy to fly went unnoticed because the event occurred after the exterior inspection and was not felt/ seen by the flight crew or pushback crew. Fortunately; the damage was not catastrophic enough to compromise the safe outcome of the initial leg. These type of events could probably be prevented by simply having extra ground personnel to monitor the pushback in critical spaces.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: B757 flight crew and ground personnel reported the elevator unknowingly struck a building during pushback and flew two flights with the undetected damage.

Narrative: I was notified several hours after the termination of our flight; that the elevator on our airplane had received significant damage during pushback on our first leg departing.Sometime during our pushback on our initial leg; the aircraft made contact with an object/structure that caused damage to the elevator. I did not feel anything out of the ordinary that indicated some type of impact during pushback nor was the flight crew notified by the pushback crew that an impact had occurred. I did not feel any abnormalities through the flight controls or the airplane during all stages of flight on the first leg when I was the pilot flying. On the second leg (throughout the entire flight) I did not feel or notice any abnormalities with the aircraft while I was performing duties as the pilot monitoring. The FO did not mention that he noticed or felt anything abnormal with the aircraft during the entire trip. The FO performed preflights at both stations.The alarming thing about this situation is that an airplane unworthy to fly went unnoticed because the event occurred after the exterior inspection and was not felt/ seen by the flight crew or pushback crew. Fortunately; the damage was not catastrophic enough to compromise the safe outcome of the initial leg. These type of events could probably be prevented by simply having extra ground personnel to monitor the pushback in critical spaces.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.