Distracted by a breakdown in SOP dialog between the flight and pushback crews; a Q400 captain failed...

Narrative:

Upon push back completion the ground crew disconnected the tow bar and proceeded to move back from the aircraft without any verbal communication or hand signals. I tried repeatedly to get one of them to give me the correct hand signal confirmation for communication door closed. After they all moved back; I did what is usually done at that point and pushed condition levers to max and moved the power levers up about a half inch. While I was doing this; a ramper; that I did not notice; moved into the area under the nose gear. Since I didn't get the 'push back complete; set brakes' command from the tug driver; I didn't set the brake. The aircraft started to slowly roll forward. At this point; the ramper that had gone under the nose now briskly exited that area. I stopped the aircraft after about a foot or two.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Distracted by a breakdown in SOP dialog between the flight and pushback crews; a Q400 Captain failed to set the parking brake and the aircraft moved forward with an undetected ground crewperson still in harms way.

Narrative: Upon push back completion the ground crew disconnected the tow bar and proceeded to move back from the aircraft without any verbal communication or hand signals. I tried repeatedly to get one of them to give me the correct hand signal confirmation for communication door closed. After they all moved back; I did what is usually done at that point and pushed condition levers to max and moved the power levers up about a half inch. While I was doing this; a ramper; that I did not notice; moved into the area under the nose gear. Since I didn't get the 'push back complete; set brakes' command from the tug driver; I didn't set the brake. The aircraft started to slowly roll forward. At this point; the ramper that had gone under the nose now briskly exited that area. I stopped the aircraft after about a foot or two.

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	835424
Time
Date	200905
Local Time Of Day	0601-1200
Place
Locale Reference	LAX.Airport
State Reference	CA
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Dash 8-400
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Taxi
Flight Plan	IFR
Component
Aircraft Component	Parking Brake
Person 1
Function	Pilot Flying Captain
Person 2
Function	Pilot Not Flying First Officer
Events
Anomaly	Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy Ground Event / Encounter Person / Animal / Bird

Distracted by a breakdown in SOP dialog between the flight and pushback crews; a Q400 captain failed to set the parking brake and the aircraft moved forward with an undetected ground crewperson still in harms way.