ORD | VX A320 Hits Wall During Pushback

Paul787 · Sun Jan 01, 2012 5:12 am

Hello
The push-back car driver miscalculated and went a bit too far away, so that the poor VX A320 hit the wall with its left wing. Thankfully, they realized they went too far away and stop right on time to prevent additional damage. Only the wingtip got damaged. Within next 5 minutes, plane was surrounded by ten fire-trucks and ambulances (just in case). The plane was stuck at the taxiway for about 20-30 minutes, and then towed back to the gate (L3). The plane continued its service to Los Angeles couple hours later. I managed to take two shots from gate L7 - sorry for poor quality.

The plane involved was Airbus 320 N629VA delivered to Virgin America in May of 2007.

And.... Happy New Year Everyone!

roseflyer · Sun Jan 01, 2012 5:42 am

Thanks for the pictures. They certainly pushed that airplane back. One has to wonder where the wing walkers were.

On a side note, that is an awful lot of trucks to respond. ORD likely has just about the highest amount of ARFF equipment of any airport in the country, so I guess they turned up for something other than a drill.

N243NW · Sun Jan 01, 2012 5:52 am

That must be a pretty big miscalculation...I've seen that area of the ramp from the AA/USO lounge, and it looks like there is plenty of room, especially if there is no AS plane at L1. Oops.

[Edited 2011-12-31 21:56:22]

splitterz · Sun Jan 01, 2012 6:56 am

I am thinking someone might be looking for a new job this new year unfortunately.

as739x · Sun Jan 01, 2012 8:52 am

Wow....bad few weeks for VX with ramp crews. They had 528's #2 engine heavily damaged 2 weeks ago at SFO.

747fan · Sun Jan 01, 2012 3:40 pm

Wow, where were the wing walkers? I would never push an airplane back without them.
Who ground handles VX at ORD? I know they're located at T3 so I'm wondering if its AA or Eagle.

Paul787 · Sun Jan 01, 2012 3:52 pm

Quoting 747fan (Reply 5):

It's definitely not AA. I talked to one of the workers recently and he said they only handle AA and AS at T3.

UnitedTristar · Sun Jan 01, 2012 3:53 pm

Quoting N243NW (Reply 2):
That must be a pretty big miscalculation...I've seen that area of the ramp from the AA/USO lounge, and it looks like there is plenty of room, especially if there is no AS plane at L1. Oops.

Actually there isn't alot of room over there, I briefly worked for DL ramp at ORD after college and that was a pain to push on that side, I preferred to push the L10 or 767 to ATL off the other side of the concourse!

-m

_AA_777_MAN · Sun Jan 01, 2012 5:58 pm

Quoting UnitedTristar (Reply 7):
I preferred to push the L10 or 767 to ATL off the other side of the concourse!

A 767 ORD-ATL? When I worked there that flight was an L1011. Miss those days.

Gr8Circle · Sun Jan 01, 2012 6:52 pm

Quoting Paul787 (Thread starter):
I managed to take two shots from gate L7 - sorry for poor quality.

What're you apologising for...? Those are excellent pics you've taken, considering there was no way you could get closer....

liftsifter · Sun Jan 01, 2012 7:12 pm

Wow! Thanks for getting these pictures! Yes, ORD has a phenomenal response team.

bohica · Sun Jan 01, 2012 8:36 pm

Quoting RoseFlyer (Reply 1):
that is an awful lot of trucks to respond.

That's about normal at a major airport. It's much better to have too many units respond than not enough. I'm sure most of those units left the area soon after the picture was taken once the severity of the incident was determined.

Quoting 747fan (Reply 5):
Wow, where were the wing walkers? I would never push an airplane back without them.

With or without wingwalkers, the tug driver should never push the plane past the centerline of the taxilane. Doing so is just asking for trouble.

charlienorth · Sun Jan 01, 2012 10:54 pm

Quoting bohica (Reply 11):
With or without wingwalkers, the tug driver should never push the plane past the centerline of the taxilane. Doing so is just asking for trouble.

No matter what happens the tug driver is in charge.

There are tighter pushes at ORD...no big deal., not world ending ...it was an incident that's done.

747-600X · Mon Jan 02, 2012 5:14 am

Swissport handles Virgin America at O'Hare. I've never seen two of their planes there at the same time, however, so they may have been short of wing walkers. On the other hand, wing walkers are becoming increasingly rare nowadays. The airlines that do their own ground handling seem to use them, but the third-party ground handling companies (Swissport, Evergreen, ASIG, etc.) sometimes have one guy out there, but as often as not, none. And it doesn't matter - the wing walker has no way of communicating with the tug driver.

Tigerguy · Mon Jan 02, 2012 5:21 am

Quoting Paul787 (Thread starter):
The plane involved was Airbus 320 N629VA delivered to Virgin America in May of 2007.

Nice to see an old friend again, even if is under such unfortunate circumstances... I flew on that plane back in November from DFW to SFO. This would be the second plane that I've flown on that would later be damaged in some way. I'm starting to wonder if I'm a jinx...

747400sp · Mon Jan 02, 2012 5:29 am

Well a push back operator, is about to get fired, but at least the passengers made it to beautiful Los Angeles.

Paul787 · Mon Jan 02, 2012 7:34 am

Quoting 747-600X (Reply 13):

The only reason there were two of them at the same time was due to the incident. The damaged plane got stuck at ORD for couple hours, so that the maintamce people could investigate potential damage. In the meantime VX had an inbound from SFO (A319). As the damaged plane was stuck at gate L3, B6 was kind enough to lend its gate (L5) to VX so that they could meet the SFO inbound and turn it to the outbound back to SFO. B6 wasn't expecting any inbounds for the next hour and a half. Also at the time of the incident AS had an inbound from SEA, and the damaged A320 was blocking the way to gate L1 (Alaska's gate), so that they were forced to use AA's gate L8. It was a crazy day for the airline folks at concourse L that day.

Fiveholer · Mon Jan 02, 2012 4:08 pm

Quoting 747-600X (Reply 13):
And it doesn't matter - the wing walker has no way of communicating with the tug driver.

That couldn't be more incorrect. Did you forget what wands and hand signals are for? Weird, to me, it doesn't look like a very tight area unless I am not seeing something obvious.

sw733 · Mon Jan 02, 2012 6:40 pm

Quoting 747-600X (Reply 13):
And it doesn't matter - the wing walker has no way of communicating with the tug driver.

Communication and speaking are not the same thing. It's very possible to communicate without speaking.

747fan · Mon Jan 02, 2012 10:24 pm

Quoting bohica (Reply 11):
With or without wingwalkers, the tug driver should never push the plane past the centerline of the taxilane. Doing so is just asking for trouble.

Yes, no doubt.

Quoting 747-600X (Reply 13):
And it doesn't matter - the wing walker has no way of communicating with the tug driver.

So the wing walker forming an "X" with his wands to signal the pushback driver to stop isn't communicating?

Quoting 747-600X (Reply 13):
On the other hand, wing walkers are becoming increasingly rare nowadays. The airlines that do their own ground handling seem to use them, but the third-party ground handling companies (Swissport, Evergreen, ASIG, etc.) sometimes have one guy out there, but as often as not, none.

And that I think is just asking for more incidents like these to happen. An airplane the size of an A320 should have 2 wingwalkers, both when it arrives at the gate & when it pushes back. One wingwalker is OK for something like an Embraer 145 (that's what we do at AA/MQ).

LGWflyer · Tue Jan 03, 2012 1:09 am

I've just seen a very poor news article about this incident, they said it was Virgin Atlantic. Thank god they did not include a pic with the article, can't imagine what they would put up (cessna anyone haha).

Anyway im glad to hear everyone was safe and that the aircraft is too!

ORD | VX A320 Hits Wall During Pushback

ORD | VX A320 Hits Wall During Pushback

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RE: ORD | VX A320 Hits Wall During Pushback

RE: ORD | VX A320 Hits Wall During Pushback

RE: ORD | VX A320 Hits Wall During Pushback

RE: ORD | VX A320 Hits Wall During Pushback

RE: ORD | VX A320 Hits Wall During Pushback

RE: ORD | VX A320 Hits Wall During Pushback

RE: ORD | VX A320 Hits Wall During Pushback

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