Flight Crew Multiengine; Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Flight Crew Total 1860
Other / Unknown; Situational Awareness
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Other / Unknown; Ground Event / Encounter Vehicle
Aircraft Aircraft Damaged; General Flight Cancelled / Delayed
Procedure; Human Factors
The aircraft was parked at the gate.  When cleared by Ramp Control to push back; the Ramp Crew initiated pushback. After pushing clear of the jet bridge while attempting to turn the aircraft toward taxi line; the Tug Operator over steered the nose wheel beyond limits resulting in the tug becoming lodged under the aircraft. The Ramp Crew alerted the Flight Crew to the problem and contacted Maintenance. Flight Crew then contacted ATC and Station Operations. When a bus arrived; passengers and crew were deplaned on the ramp and passengers bussed to the terminal to await bags.
We pushed back off of the gate. The Fleet Service Clerk driving the pushback tug lost control of the tug and ended up overturning the tug almost a complete 180 degrees striking the bottom of the fuselage of the aircraft and wedged the tug underneath. We coordinated with Operations; Ground Personnel; Maintenance and various other departments to arrange for the passengers to be safely extracted from the aircraft and taken to the terminal via company bus. The Fleet Service Clerk tug driver overturned the tug during pushback resulting in a loss of control of the push and struck the aircraft fuselage and became stuck underneath. It is suggested that tug drivers get additional training on how the push back tug operates. It is my opinion that the Tug Driver could have stopped the push and moved in reverse to correct the issue but it seems that the Tug Driver kept going forward which resulted in the tug continuing to turn past the limits and striking the aircraft.
Flight Crew reported a Tug Operator lost control of the tug and crashed into the airplane.