Narrative:

This incident took place as we were preparing to push back. The captain and I were in the cockpit preparing the FMS and the paperwork for departure when we were jolted in our seats by movement of our aircraft. We both looked up to see outside our front windows that a large tug was scraping the nose and the right fuselage of our aircraft. At first the movement seemed light but as it continued the movement became more violent and was accompanied by the sound of our aircraft being crushed. The entire hit lasted several seconds as I watched the tug continue to move along side our cockpit. It seemed the tug driver was trying to maneuver between the ground power unit and our aircraft and did not notice he had hit us. Our tow bar was connected and projected out from the nose gear ten to twenty feet. The driver of the tug first ran over the tow bar before striking the nose of our aircraft. Upon inspection we found our aircraft had damage to the nose cone and nose gear. I was astonished that the driver of the tug would attempt to maneuver so close to the aircraft. Procedures and guidelines are already in place to avoid such incidents. The driver should have had a ground guide or could have driven another route.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A tug driver scrapped an aircraft damaging the nose cone and nose gear as he maneuvered between a power cart and an aircraft parked in the gate.

Narrative: This incident took place as we were preparing to push back. The Captain and I were in the cockpit preparing the FMS and the paperwork for departure when we were jolted in our seats by movement of our aircraft. We both looked up to see outside our front windows that a large tug was scraping the nose and the right fuselage of our aircraft. At first the movement seemed light but as it continued the movement became more violent and was accompanied by the sound of our aircraft being crushed. The entire hit lasted several seconds as I watched the tug continue to move along side our cockpit. It seemed the tug driver was trying to maneuver between the ground power unit and our aircraft and did not notice he had hit us. Our tow bar was connected and projected out from the nose gear ten to twenty feet. The driver of the tug first ran over the tow bar before striking the nose of our aircraft. Upon inspection we found our aircraft had damage to the nose cone and nose gear. I was astonished that the driver of the tug would attempt to maneuver so close to the aircraft. Procedures and guidelines are already in place to avoid such incidents. The driver should have had a ground guide or could have driven another route.

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.