Narrative:

Last leg of the night. After our aircraft was boarded; we realized that we had absolutely no ground crew. A radio call to operations revealed that the ramp was short staffed; and they would come to our plane when they finished their duties at other gates. The first officer and I decided to speed things along by taking all the carry-on bags down from the jet bridge and loading them into the forward bins. During our loading of the carry on bags; the ramp crew finally arrived to load the checked bags. Someone in a vehicle marked 'ramp supervisor' drove up and stopped for a minute; saw us loading bags; and left. After finishing that job and closing up the aircraft; we were left alone for a couple of minutes once again. Finally a tug arrived and we established headset contact. During the push back; we were informed that the ramp was extremely short staffed and they were working several gates by themselves. During push back; we were given permission to start our engines. The tug stopped; asked us to set our brake; and disconnected. We were heads down because we were in the middle of the engine start sequence. In other airports; we are told via headset that the steering is re-engaged and which side to look for the wave off. I have noticed that at some stations; this does not occur via headset. Instead; the crew disconnected; tried to make eye contact to give us a wave off (remember; we were heads down during the engine start sequence); and drove backwards while waving. When I glanced up and saw them driving backwards; the driver waved and then sped away. His other colleague was already walking away toward another gate. Now; our company procedure is to follow checklists; and to be heads down monitoring engine instruments during the start sequence; but I make it a habit to break this rule and always check for the tow bar to see who has it and how is it leaving our aircraft area. (I have; in fact; been rebuked for doing this during training check rides.) thank goodness I looked outside during the engine start sequence this particular evening; or else I would not have seen our push back tug leaving; and I would not have seen that there was no tow bar attached. We cannot see the tow bar from inside the cockpit. I scanned the area to see if maybe another employee had taken the tow bar-- maybe by hand or maybe another tug had come up and grabbed our tow bar. I was tempted to ignore the situation-- after all; what are the chances that the tow bar was still attached? Surely I just missed seeing it somewhere. Instead; I asked the first officer to call operations and ask for someone to come out to the aircraft and check. We did; in fact; still have the tow bar attached. It was removed; we finished our checklists; and the rest of the flight was uneventful. I shudder to think what might have happened had we not asked for someone to come out and check. I don't know the specifications of how much hydraulic power can overcome a tow bar; but I suspect that with nosewheel steering and a short taxi we could have entered the runway without knowing the tow bar was attached. At that point one of two things might have happened: 1) the tow bar might have cocked to one side during the takeoff roll; possibly twisting the nosewheel to one side at a speed too low to compensate with aerodynamic controls (rudder) but too high to stop before departing the side of the runway with a full plane of people and possibly damaging the main gear as it departed the nosewheel (think concord in paris a few years ago) ; or 2) the tow bar may have remained attached through rotation; damaging the nosewheel during retraction and possibly making the landing an emergency situation. It appears that the ramp crew was so short staffed that they were rushing to do their jobs; missing important stuff in the process. I included in my narrative above the problems with loading the bags (including my first officer and I loading bags ourselves) because I wanted to show that the ground crew were short staffed and were too rushed to complete their jobs at all; let alone properly. When we called into the operations; we were told that a supervisor was aware of the situation. I know that the flight crew did nothing wrong and no damage was done; so we easily could have forgotten the whole incident and gone on with our lives. I am writing this report because I believe the root of the problem was much deeper than the push back crew. I do not want an $8/hour employee to be fired; thinking that this solves the problem. Listen; we all recognize that business is business; and that controlling costs is necessary to make a profit. But there comes a point where increased cutting will result in the loss of life. In the interest of safety; this incident needs to be evaluated and its core problems identified. Yes; the push back crew made a very serious and potentially fatal mistake... But why? Why were we so short staffed? Do we have a staffing requirements problem? Are we not scheduling enough people to meet the demands of the job? While it may seem that profits can be increased by having fewer people do more work; there comes a point where the remaining employees on staff simply skip important elements of their duties in order to meet the demands of the job. It is human nature that when work load increases; a subconscious prioritization occurs. Which elements of the job can be prioritized lower (ignored) in order to complete other elements? In this case; the tow bar was ignored in order to rush to another gate & flight. Do we have a problem attracting and retaining qualified staff? Conventional wisdom says that if one pays peanuts; one attracts monkeys. Are we not providing enough of an incentive (pay; benefits; schedule; quality of life; workplace enjoyment) to attract qualified and capable staff? I hope the next crew does not pay the price in the form of damaged equipment; injuries; or loss of life before the true causes of this situation are investigated and rectified. In the mean time; I suggest setting a standard of the maximum number of flights a single crew can work over a given amount of time; and limiting them accordingly. If there is not enough crew to adequately and safely conduct the required ground operations; the answer is not to tell them to work faster and do the best they can. The answer is to post delays and cancellations to ensure that our operation remains safe.

Related reports:

Google
 

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A CRJ900 pushback crew did not remove the tow bar after pushback and disconnect. The aircraft Captain noticed the crew leave with no tow bar on the tug.

Narrative: Last leg of the night. After our aircraft was boarded; we realized that we had absolutely no ground crew. A radio call to Operations revealed that the ramp was short staffed; and they would come to our plane when they finished their duties at other gates. The First Officer and I decided to speed things along by taking all the carry-on bags down from the jet bridge and loading them into the forward bins. During our loading of the carry on bags; the ramp crew finally arrived to load the checked bags. Someone in a vehicle marked 'RAMP SUPERVISOR' drove up and stopped for a minute; saw us loading bags; and left. After finishing that job and closing up the aircraft; we were left alone for a couple of minutes once again. Finally a tug arrived and we established headset contact. During the push back; we were informed that the ramp was extremely short staffed and they were working several gates by themselves. During push back; we were given permission to start our engines. The tug stopped; asked us to set our brake; and disconnected. We were heads down because we were in the middle of the engine start sequence. In other airports; we are told via headset that the steering is re-engaged and which side to look for the wave off. I have noticed that at some stations; this does not occur via headset. Instead; the crew disconnected; tried to make eye contact to give us a wave off (remember; we were heads down during the engine start sequence); and drove backwards while waving. When I glanced up and saw them driving backwards; the driver waved and then sped away. His other colleague was already walking away toward another gate. Now; our company procedure is to follow checklists; and to be heads down monitoring engine instruments during the start sequence; but I make it a habit to break this rule and always check for the tow bar to see who has it and how is it leaving our aircraft area. (I have; in fact; been rebuked for doing this during training check rides.) Thank goodness I looked outside during the engine start sequence this particular evening; or else I would not have seen our push back tug leaving; and I would not have seen that there was no tow bar attached. We cannot see the tow bar from inside the cockpit. I scanned the area to see if maybe another employee had taken the tow bar-- maybe by hand or maybe another tug had come up and grabbed our tow bar. I was tempted to ignore the situation-- after all; what are the chances that the tow bar was still attached? Surely I just missed seeing it somewhere. Instead; I asked the First Officer to call Operations and ask for someone to come out to the aircraft and check. We did; in fact; still have the tow bar attached. It was removed; we finished our checklists; and the rest of the flight was uneventful. I shudder to think what might have happened had we not asked for someone to come out and check. I don't know the specifications of how much hydraulic power can overcome a tow bar; but I suspect that with nosewheel steering and a short taxi we could have entered the runway without knowing the tow bar was attached. At that point one of two things might have happened: 1) The tow bar might have cocked to one side during the takeoff roll; possibly twisting the nosewheel to one side at a speed too low to compensate with aerodynamic controls (rudder) but too high to stop before departing the side of the runway with a full plane of people and possibly damaging the main gear as it departed the nosewheel (think Concord in Paris a few years ago) ; or 2) the tow bar may have remained attached through rotation; damaging the nosewheel during retraction and possibly making the landing an emergency situation. It appears that the ramp crew was so short staffed that they were rushing to do their jobs; missing important stuff in the process. I included in my narrative above the problems with loading the bags (including my First Officer and I loading bags ourselves) because I wanted to show that the ground crew were short staffed and were too rushed to complete their jobs at all; let alone properly. When we called into the Operations; we were told that a Supervisor was aware of the situation. I know that the flight crew did nothing wrong and no damage was done; so we easily could have forgotten the whole incident and gone on with our lives. I am writing this report because I believe the root of the problem was much deeper than the push back crew. I do not want an $8/hour employee to be fired; thinking that this solves the problem. Listen; we all recognize that business is business; and that controlling costs is necessary to make a profit. But there comes a point where increased cutting will result in the loss of life. In the interest of safety; this incident needs to be evaluated and its core problems identified. Yes; the push back crew made a very serious and potentially fatal mistake... but why? Why were we SO short staffed? Do we have a staffing requirements problem? Are we not scheduling enough people to meet the demands of the job? While it may seem that profits can be increased by having fewer people do more work; there comes a point where the remaining employees on staff simply skip important elements of their duties in order to meet the demands of the job. It is human nature that when work load increases; a subconscious prioritization occurs. Which elements of the job can be prioritized lower (ignored) in order to complete other elements? In this case; the tow bar was ignored in order to rush to another gate & flight. Do we have a problem attracting and retaining qualified staff? Conventional wisdom says that if one pays peanuts; one attracts monkeys. Are we not providing enough of an incentive (pay; benefits; schedule; quality of life; workplace enjoyment) to attract qualified and capable staff? I hope the next crew does not pay the price in the form of damaged equipment; injuries; or loss of life before the true causes of this situation are investigated and rectified. In the mean time; I suggest setting a standard of the maximum number of flights a single crew can work over a given amount of time; and limiting them accordingly. If there is not enough crew to adequately and SAFELY conduct the required ground operations; the answer is not to tell them to work faster and do the best they can. The answer is to post delays and cancellations to ensure that our operation remains safe.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 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.