Narrative:

I was near the gate kiosk when I heard the gate lead say over the radio that [an aircraft] had a break away. By the time I got out to the plane the plane was stopped in the middle of the [ramp] and the pushback tractor was stopped. The tow bar was hooked up to the tractor still and the head of the tow bar was looking like nothing was wrong; shear pin was not broken. Took the tow bar down and I told them what had happen as told to me by the push back driver.as they looked and played with the system we found that there was slop in the handle and that if handle was moved to the right and then lifted up it would by-pass the locking system. [Another ground crew] said that they have heard of it happening but have not seen it personally and after talking with some other people they too have either seen or experienced the same thing. [Another ground crew] did say that these tow bars are being used for 2 different types of aircraft and that the adjustments have to be loose enough to be able to fit both knuckles the nose gear of the boeing and airbus aircraft.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Ramp employee reported a break-away during pushback was caused by a tow bar head being loose in order to fit two different type of aircraft.

Narrative: I was near the gate Kiosk when I heard the gate lead say over the radio that [an aircraft] had a break away. By the time I got out to the plane the plane was stopped in the middle of the [ramp] and the pushback tractor was stopped. The tow bar was hooked up to the tractor still and the head of the tow bar was looking like nothing was wrong; shear pin was not broken. Took the tow bar down and I told them what had happen as told to me by the push back driver.As they looked and played with the system we found that there was slop in the handle and that if handle was moved to the right and then lifted up it would by-pass the locking system. [Another ground crew] said that they have heard of it happening but have not seen it personally and after talking with some other people they too have either seen or experienced the same thing. [Another ground crew] did say that these tow bars are being used for 2 different types of aircraft and that the adjustments have to be loose enough to be able to fit both knuckles the nose gear of the Boeing and Airbus aircraft.

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.