Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Multiengine; Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Communication Breakdown
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Ground Event / Encounter Vehicle
Aircraft Aircraft Damaged; Flight Crew Returned To Gate
Airport; Procedure; Human Factors
Normal day; normal passenger operations; on Aircraft X; performing ZZZ to ZZZ1 flight. With APU being under MEL; started engine number one at the gate according to normal checklist. Cleared to push out of the gate; to the blue line. The initial push back was mostly smooth. Aircraft pushed on a slant angle on the green line and stopped. Tow truck driver contacted the flight deck; stating that he will pull us to the blue line. Since then; the mild tensions and sounds were sensible as if it felt that the angle of pulling forward to the blue line was kind of steep. I; personally; could not see the tow truck from the right seat. Shortly after; we heard a bigger noise and aircraft started to move forward that followed immediately by the driver asking us to set the brake in a rushed voice; Captain acted promptly; and we stopped the aircraft on time and smoothly. I personally did not feel any impact. We stopped with an angle on the blue line. The driver mentioned that the tow bar broke and he is going to disconnect and contact the ramp safety. We communicated with the Ramp; Operations and MX (Maintenance) Control. Captain communicated with the flight attendants and made an announcement to the passengers informing them about the nature of problem. Within 10 minutes or so; with the supervision of our MX personnel on the ground; a new tow truck; new tow bar and a new driver towed us back to the same gate. This time it was very smooth. We found out that a scratch line and a shallow dent exist on the lower right-hand side of the aircraft. It happened by the shallow impact of the fuselage with the roof of the tow truck. Captain wrote up the damage in MX logbook. Dispatch and Flight Operations have been informed. Everybody acted professional during and after the event. Don't know if the tow bar breaking happened because of the angle & the tension exposed to it; or it was the material failure. Tail swap happened shortly after; and we performed the same flight on ship (tail). If a tow truck driver is not happy with the location of the aircraft or if for some reason they are in a tight spot; or any other unusual issue; they can always consider us as a team and communicate any unease with us; so we all figure out how to get out of it. My assumption is that if we were unhooked from the tow bar on the green line; the entire event could have been avoided. It could only cost me a simple radio call to the ramp; I guess.
These are my recollections as I remember them: We were operating Aircraft X operating out of gate X. Aircraft X was operating with MEL APU Inoperative applied. We complied with procedures for engine start with external pneumatic air source & completed the appropriate normal checklists. Ramp tower assigned us a push back onto the blue line. The push back seemed normal with the exception that the AC (aircraft) was at an odd angle. I attributed this to the push crew having to avoid the construction adjacent to N11. The tug driver announced that he would get us over to the blue line & proceeded to turn the jet that direction. At this point I could sense some stress on the tug/towbar combination but nothing that seemed abnormal. As the driver proceeded towards the blue line the noise the towbar was making got louder until we heard what I'd describe as a pop or snap. At this point the jet rolled forward due to forward momentum & the driver or wing walker said set the brakes. I estimate the jet moved forward about 10 feet as I was applying the brakes. We verified that there were no injuries to any of the push back crew & were informed that everyone on the ramp was safe. I stopped the jet as judicially as I could; taking into account that the FA's (flight attendants) were probably standing; conducting their safety demonstration. The driver announced he needed to have the Ramp Safety Supervisor conduct an inspection & we called Line Maintenance to survey the situation. We called the cabin to verify there were no injuries to guests or crew & subsequently a PA was made by me to inform the guests of our situation. Line Maintenance asked us if we could taxi the jet back to gate under power which I declined; not knowing the extent of any possible damage. A new towbar & tug was connected to the jet & we were towed back to gate. After the checklists were completed I proceeded to do a visual inspection; where I found an approximately 5 foot scrape on the underside of the fuselage; outboard of the right side nose gear door. I made another PA from the L1 door area informing the guests that there would be a tail swap & what our new gate was; then made an AC logbook entry describing the damage I observed. The flight proceeded as normal to ZZZ1 after a 2 hour delay to get everything ready on the jet we swapped into. Not sure if time was a big factor or not. The ramp personnel did not seem rushed but we did push back several minutes after departure time due to the jet being fueled late. Parking an A-321 at [this] gate with the current construction process ongoing may present a challenge to the push back crew due to the longer fuselage & trying to avoid the construction area adjacent to gate. My biggest suggestion would be for the push back crew to communicate any difficulty they may be having with any ground operation. In this circumstance we could have easily stopped the jet; set the parking brakes; & requested a taxi from our current position. We strive to comply with directions given; however; sometimes we need to ask to amend those instructions to meet the current situation.
Flight crew flying A321 aircraft report contact with tow tug during pushback.