Heavy Transport
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Situational Awareness; Communication Breakdown
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Ground Event / Encounter Other / Unknown
Aircraft Aircraft Damaged; General Maintenance Action
Human Factors; Airport
Captain in training. Had 6 prior training flights then a two-week break before this flight. Parking ramp with upslope required extra power to reach stop point but pilot misjudged stopping point and plane came to stop approximately 2-3 feet prior to spot. Pilot then had to add quite a bit of power to move aircraft to proper point. Since it was a short distance; the marshaler signaled stop while the pilot had thrust set relatively high which led the pilot to abruptly apply pedal brakes. Once stopped; he failed/forgot to set the parking brake but shut down one of the engines. Due to the slope of the ramp; the aircraft stayed in position with one engine running as pilot waited for maintenance personnel to connect ground power. Once ground power was selected; the pilot shut down last engine. With loss of thrust; aircraft began to roll backward and stopped rolling when the nose tether became taut. Total distance aircraft rolled was approximately 3-4 feet. The pilot had just turned off the beacon so the ground crewmembers were just starting to pull the chocks toward the main wheels but weren't close to them.  Pilot in Captain upgrade training who had two-week break in training. The break in training coupled with the high power requirements to move the final few feet into parking and abrupt stop perhaps startled the pilot so much that he forgot the basic requirement to set the parking brake. The fact the ramp was sloped so significantly that the aircraft stayed in place with an engine running and no brakes set and then rolling backward instead of rolling forward was fortunate as rolling forward would have perhaps been more damaging.Every First Officer makes the assumption that when the Captain stops the airplane that he/she sets the parking brake. They do not look over to confirm the Captain set the parking brake. The only procedure I could envision as being put in place to prevent this would be to have the Captain verbally state: 'Parking brakes; set' every time he/she sets the parking brakes.
I am in upgrade training for Captain from [different aircraft type] First Officer. This was my FAA ride after a two week break in training. While pulling into parking; with number 2 shutdown; the aircraft came to a stop a few feet short of the spot and it took quite a bit of power and what seemed like a long time (probably 1-2 min) to get the aircraft in position. For whatever reason I completely forgot to set the parking brake. I was holding the brakes through the shutdown. After I turned off the beacon; Maintenance installed the nose tether. When I let go of the brakes; the airplane rolled back and the nose tether stopped the aircraft. Fortunately; nobody was in the way or hurt; but the tether did break a nose wheel steering hydraulic line.
A Captain in training misjudged the stop line while parking. After adding power to position the aircraft correctly he neglected to set the parking brake; causing the aircraft to roll backwards when the engines were shut down resulting in minor damage to the nose wheel steering.