Narrative:

Taxiing out of sfo; ground control gave us instructions to taxi to 1L via a; F1; and B. There were delays on the taxi and we were holding on a for about 10 minutes; behind 2 other aircraft. Once we started moving; we continued on F1 and B. Once southbound on B taxiway; an aircraft made a turn from G to B (northbound). I flashed all my lights and they stopped. At that point; we were both stuck; as we were in some kind of standoff; head-to-head; with nowhere to go. Ground asked both of us if we could make a 180; but we both declined as we had no way to verify if we had enough room to complete a 180 without incident. Eventually; we got a tug to tow us back to F1; where we could make a turnoff and continue our taxi.ground control was very busy at the time with ground traffic and accidentally gave the [other aircraft] ground instructions that would eventually conflict with the instructions we had received about 15 minutes earlier. Ground admitted the wrongdoing by later apologizing to us for the mix up. We did what we were instructed to do; so I could only surmise that the only thing we could have done is to pay close attention to all the other taxi instructions given to other aircraft; to ensure they don't conflict with our taxi instructions.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Air Carrier Captain reported Ground Control issued conflicting taxi instructions.

Narrative: Taxiing out of SFO; ground control gave us instructions to taxi to 1L via A; F1; and B. There were delays on the taxi and we were holding on A for about 10 minutes; behind 2 other aircraft. Once we started moving; we continued on F1 and B. Once southbound on B taxiway; an aircraft made a turn from G to B (northbound). I flashed all my lights and they stopped. At that point; we were both stuck; as we were in some kind of standoff; head-to-head; with nowhere to go. Ground asked both of us if we could make a 180; but we both declined as we had no way to verify if we had enough room to complete a 180 without incident. Eventually; we got a tug to tow us back to F1; where we could make a turnoff and continue our taxi.Ground control was very busy at the time with ground traffic and accidentally gave the [other aircraft] ground instructions that would eventually conflict with the instructions we had received about 15 minutes earlier. Ground admitted the wrongdoing by later apologizing to us for the mix up. We did what we were instructed to do; so I could only surmise that the only thing we could have done is to pay close attention to all the other taxi instructions given to other aircraft; to ensure they don't conflict with our taxi instructions.

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.