Incident Overview
On 15 January 2009, at approximately 1000 UTC, a DHC-8-402 Dash 8 aircraft registered G-JECY was involved in a pushback incident on Stand 8L at Birmingham Airport. The aircraft was operating a commercial air transport passenger flight to Glasgow, with four crew and 70 passengers on board. No injuries were reported, and the only damage was a slight tread damage to the inboard right tyre.
Sequence of Events
Prior to pushback, there were communications between the ground crew and the flight crew via intercom. During the pushback, a loud interference occurred on the ground crew intercom, which the flight crew found distracting. The ground crewman removed his headset and reverted to hand signals. The captain and ground crewman had differing recollections of the subsequent hand signals: the ground crewman indicated that he signalled the captain to apply the parking brake, but the captain did not recall seeing that signal. Consequently, the parking brake was not applied before the towbar was disconnected.
After the tug moved away, the flight crew began after-start actions and the checklist. The captain noticed the aircraft moving backward slowly and decided not to brake hard to avoid tipping. He applied power to arrest the movement, and the aircraft stopped, believed by the crew to be at the edge of the apron. When the captain later applied power to move forward, the aircraft turned to the right because the right main wheel had rolled over the edge of the apron and could not climb back. The captain reduced power and applied the parking brake, then shut down the engines. Passengers disembarked by bus.
Communication Breakdown
The captain believed that the breakdown in communication with the ground crew at the completion of the pushback, and the resulting distraction from his normal tasks and procedures, led him to forget to apply the parking brake.