Narrative:

The tug driver told me he was ready for pushback. I told him to stand by while we awaited maintenance paperwork. This delay waiting for the [maintenance release] took 5-10 minutes. Once we got the [maintenance release] and completed our checklists; we obtained pushback clearance. At this point; I'm supposed to release the brakes and say 'brakes released; cleared to push'. Instead; I asked the tug driver if he was still ready to go. This is non-standard phraseology on my part; but after the delay I wanted to make sure the ramp was still ready to go prior to brake release. It's a good thing I did ask; because I got no response. It turns out there was a shift change; and our pushback crew left. Nobody ever said a word to me. This is exactly the scenario that is never supposed to happen. Having laminated phraseology cards in the tugs does not solve this problem. This challenge/response procedure is faulty; and it could have led to uncommanded aircraft movement. When we got a new pushback crew; they tried to push us with an electric tug; but the tug would not capture the nose wheel properly. The tug driver told me it might be a low battery; so we waited some more while they found a standard tug. Once the standard tug was connected and ramp was ready again; the tug driver told me; 'we had to get a standard tug because we're not qualified to use the electric tug.' I don't fully comprehend what happened here; but if they weren't qualified to use the electric tug why did they try to use it? That's just not acceptable.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: B757 Captain reported a number of deviations from SOP during pushback from the gate.

Narrative: The tug driver told me he was ready for pushback. I told him to stand by while we awaited maintenance paperwork. This delay waiting for the [Maintenance Release] took 5-10 minutes. Once we got the [Maintenance Release] and completed our checklists; we obtained pushback clearance. At this point; I'm supposed to release the brakes and say 'brakes released; cleared to push'. Instead; I asked the tug driver if he was still ready to go. This is non-standard phraseology on my part; but after the delay I wanted to make sure the ramp was still ready to go prior to brake release. It's a good thing I did ask; because I got no response. It turns out there was a shift change; and our pushback crew left. Nobody ever said a word to me. This is exactly the scenario that is never supposed to happen. Having laminated phraseology cards in the tugs does not solve this problem. This challenge/response procedure is faulty; and it could have led to uncommanded aircraft movement. When we got a new pushback crew; they tried to push us with an electric tug; but the tug would not capture the nose wheel properly. The tug driver told me it might be a low battery; so we waited some more while they found a standard tug. Once the standard tug was connected and ramp was ready again; the tug driver told me; 'We had to get a standard tug because we're not qualified to use the electric tug.' I don't fully comprehend what happened here; but if they weren't qualified to use the electric tug why did they try to use it? That's just not acceptable.

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.