B747 captain reports that new push back procedures are not well understood by the ground crews. A sa...

Narrative:

Ground crew was following what we understood to be new procedures. After I gave the 'disconnect headset' response; I looked toward my right (terminal side) and saw the marshaller with his arms outstretched at a 45 degree angle. There was no chance that the aircraft was safe to taxi; we did not see the tug pull away from the aircraft. We waited until we saw the tug clear the aircraft and then I flashed the taxi light and received a salute from the marshaller. After take-off the crew was not certain if we had anticipated the wrong commands or the marshaller was at fault. After review we believe the marshaller mistakenly was giving us the safe to taxi signal. Had we not been aware of the tug position we could have damaged the aircraft or caused serious injury to ground personnel. I think the minimal training for the many SOP changes is a factor in this incident.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: B747 Captain reports that new push back procedures are not well understood by the ground crews. A safe to taxi signal is received well before the tug has cleared the nose gear.

Narrative: Ground Crew was following what we understood to be new procedures. After I gave the 'disconnect headset' response; I looked toward my right (terminal side) and saw the marshaller with his arms outstretched at a 45 degree angle. There was no chance that the aircraft was safe to taxi; we did not see the tug pull away from the aircraft. We waited until we saw the tug clear the aircraft and then I flashed the taxi light and received a salute from the marshaller. After take-off the crew was not certain if we had anticipated the wrong commands or the marshaller was at fault. After review we believe the marshaller mistakenly was giving us the safe to taxi signal. Had we not been aware of the tug position we could have damaged the aircraft or caused serious injury to ground personnel. I think the minimal training for the many SOP changes is a factor in this incident.

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	977065
Time
Date	201110
Local Time Of Day	0001-0600
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.Airport
State Reference	US
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	B747-400
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Taxi
Person 1
Function	Captain Pilot Not Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 250 Flight Crew Total 25000 Flight Crew Type 5000
Events
Anomaly	Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy

B747 captain reports that new push back procedures are not well understood by the ground crews. A safe to taxi signal is received well before the tug has cleared the nose gear.