Narrative:

After landing in lax we cleared the runway and told ground we were parking at the west/remote gates; gate X and were given taxi instructions to this ramp area. We were aware of the location of the west/remote gates but were unsure where exactly gate X was located and had not been to this area of the airport before. This area of the airport is used for parking aircraft for maintenance procedures. We saw a beech 1900 and elected to park next to the aircraft on the right. We felt we were not obstructing taxiways or would not be in conflict with other aircraft taxiing or being towed in our vicinity. We were later approached by lax airport operations that our aircrafts wingtip was in fact protruding out into the taxiway and that we needed to move our aircraft immediately. We notified ground about repositioning the aircraft and took the aircraft to gate X where we should've parked the plane originally. The parking spots were designated with white spray paint and were about 2.5 ft in length which were very hard to see at night. Gate X was also not designated on any commercial airport plates for lax. We were also unfamiliar with the lines that designated where the safe zone were for aircraft undertow or being taxied on the taxiways in the ramp area. There may have been an issue with a large aircraft if it had been taxiing in the vicinity of our aircraft due to our wingtip protruding into taxiway. We should've had more communication with our ramp agents in lax so they could have been available to park us and use standard hand signals to show us where the location of gate X was on the ramp. They were not available for our arrival because they were unloading passengers from a revenue flight. We could've also queried lax ground for guidance as well to determine where our exact parking spot was. A more detailed area of the west/remote gates on an airport chart may have also prevented this occurrence along with lighted signs clearly designating parking spots in this area. Bottom line is the crew was not positive about the location of the correct parking spot and should've asked for clarification from either gate agents or ground control before shutting down and parking the aircraft.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A crew was cleared to a LAX West Remote gate for parking but were unfamiliar with and did not have a chart for that area so parked partially on a taxiway and were told by Airport Operations to move.

Narrative: After landing in LAX we cleared the runway and told Ground we were parking at the West/Remote Gates; Gate X and were given taxi instructions to this ramp area. We were aware of the location of the West/Remote gates but were unsure where exactly Gate X was located and had not been to this area of the airport before. This area of the airport is used for parking aircraft for maintenance procedures. We saw a Beech 1900 and elected to park next to the aircraft on the right. We felt we were not obstructing taxiways or would not be in conflict with other aircraft taxiing or being towed in our vicinity. We were later approached by LAX Airport Operations that our aircrafts wingtip was in fact protruding out into the taxiway and that we needed to move our aircraft immediately. We notified Ground about repositioning the aircraft and took the aircraft to Gate X where we should've parked the plane originally. The parking spots were designated with white spray paint and were about 2.5 FT in length which were very hard to see at night. Gate X was also not designated on any commercial airport plates for LAX. We were also unfamiliar with the lines that designated where the safe zone were for aircraft undertow or being taxied on the taxiways in the ramp area. There may have been an issue with a large aircraft if it had been taxiing in the vicinity of our aircraft due to our wingtip protruding into taxiway. We should've had more communication with our ramp agents in LAX so they could have been available to park us and use standard hand signals to show us where the location of Gate X was on the ramp. They were not available for our arrival because they were unloading passengers from a revenue flight. We could've also queried LAX Ground for guidance as well to determine where our exact parking spot was. A more detailed area of the West/Remote gates on an airport chart may have also prevented this occurrence along with lighted signs clearly designating parking spots in this area. Bottom line is the crew was not positive about the location of the correct parking spot and should've asked for clarification from either gate agents or ground control before shutting down and parking the aircraft.

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.