Narrative:

This incident occurred on the outbound flight after the incident with ground marshaller on the inbound flight. We sat at the gate with clearance to push for quite some time because the tug drivers headset stopped working. Ramp wanted to hand signal push; but that wouldn't work because we had a specific push clearance. Finally they procured another cord. When we were cleared to push back ground instructed us to push back northwest. I cleared the driver to push us back that direction and he began his push; he pushed us the wrong way! The first officer told me ground was very mad so I told the tug driver to pull us back into the gate and do it the right way. He informed me he couldn't do it; as he was not qualified! What if we had an engine that wouldn't start? How do we get towed back into the gate and how long would we block the taxiway? We need to take a serious look at this station's training.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: B757 Captain requests push back to the northwest to comply with ground instructions. Tug driver pushed the wrong way and when the Captain asked to be pulled back in and pushed correctly; the tug driver informs him that he is not qualified to do that.

Narrative: This incident occurred on the outbound flight after the incident with ground marshaller on the inbound flight. We sat at the gate with clearance to push for quite some time because the tug drivers headset stopped working. Ramp wanted to hand signal push; but that wouldn't work because we had a specific push clearance. Finally they procured another cord. When we were cleared to push back Ground instructed us to push back northwest. I cleared the driver to push us back that direction and he began his push; he pushed us the wrong way! The First Officer told me Ground was very mad so I told the tug driver to pull us back into the gate and do it the right way. He informed me he couldn't do it; as he was not qualified! What if we had an engine that wouldn't start? How do we get towed back into the gate and how long would we block the taxiway? We need to take a serious look at this station's training.

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.