A320 captain describes a pushback without headsets in which the ground crewman in charge remains in ...

Narrative:

Pushback crew had problems communicating with me so they decided to pushback using hand signals. The communication that I received from the person relaying signals to the tug driver was very poor. He gave me the brake release signal then sat in his tug and slowly followed the airplane while typing into his bag scanner device. He was about 50 yards away from the airplane most of the time. He was not available for me to communicate with him and I had no way of communicating with the tug driver. After the plane reached the spot to stop; he then drove up in his tug and gave me the brake set signal. He then gave me the engine start signal. In my 21 year career including 13 years as captain; this was the most unsafe pushback I have ever encountered.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A320 Captain describes a pushback without headsets in which the ground crewman in charge remains in his vehicle and does not monitor the progress of the pushback until it is time to set brakes and start engines.

Narrative: Pushback crew had problems communicating with me so they decided to pushback using hand signals. The communication that I received from the person relaying signals to the tug driver was very poor. He gave me the brake release signal then sat in his tug and slowly followed the airplane while typing into his bag scanner device. He was about 50 yards away from the airplane most of the time. He was not available for me to communicate with him and I had no way of communicating with the tug driver. After the plane reached the spot to stop; he then drove up in his tug and gave me the brake set signal. He then gave me the engine start signal. In my 21 year career including 13 years as Captain; this was the most unsafe pushback I have ever encountered.

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.

Attributes
ACN	929769
Time
Date	201101
Local Time Of Day	1201-1800
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.Airport
State Reference	US
Environment
Light	Daylight
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	A320
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Taxi
Person 1
Function	Captain Pilot Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 20
Events
Anomaly	Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy Ground Event / Encounter Other / Unknown

A320 captain describes a pushback without headsets in which the ground crewman in charge remains in his vehicle and does not monitor the progress of the pushback until it is time to set brakes and start engines.