Narrative:

While taxing to our gate area I taxied past our parking spot. We did not see the ground crew. There were two other aircraft parked. One aircraft was parked deeper than the other. This made me think that the one parked deeper was not at a jet bridge but on the open ramp where a ramp is placed up to the aircraft for the passengers. As I passed the the plane I realized that I was wrong and that I passed my spot. With the aircraft at gate two parked that deep I believed that I could make a u-turn. I had a ground personnel marshal me through the turn. He was giving me the signal to continue. As I neared the exhaust area of the parked aircraft he signaled to stop. He used his flashlight to check the area and signaled me to continue. I cleared the tail of the parked aircraft and and was still being given the clear hand signal. Then as the turn was nearly complete the ground crew guy giving me signals started to maneuver over to where I would line up in my parking spot. Then I felt something like you would if you taxied over a drain on the ramp and stated 'what was that.' when I observed a mechanic walking out I realized that I had made contact with the other aircraft. I should have set the brake and asked for a tug to maneuver the aircraft back to its parking spot. The preventative measure would be to never maneuver the aircraft at anytime you suspect the room to safely maneuver is in question.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Air carrier flight crew reported while maneuvering into parking spot; aircraft made contact with another airplane.

Narrative: While taxing to our gate area I taxied past our parking spot. We did not see the ground crew. There were two other aircraft parked. One aircraft was parked deeper than the other. This made me think that the one parked deeper was not at a jet bridge but on the open ramp where a ramp is placed up to the aircraft for the passengers. As I passed the the plane I realized that I was wrong and that I passed my spot. With the aircraft at gate two parked that deep I believed that I could make a u-turn. I had a ground personnel marshal me through the turn. He was giving me the signal to continue. As I neared the exhaust area of the parked aircraft he signaled to stop. He used his flashlight to check the area and signaled me to continue. I cleared the tail of the parked aircraft and and was still being given the clear hand signal. Then as the turn was nearly complete the ground crew guy giving me signals started to maneuver over to where I would line up in my parking spot. Then I felt something like you would if you taxied over a drain on the ramp and stated 'what was that.' When I observed a mechanic walking out I realized that I had made contact with the other aircraft. I should have set the brake and asked for a tug to maneuver the aircraft back to its parking spot. The preventative measure would be to never maneuver the aircraft at anytime you suspect the room to safely maneuver is in question.

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.