B767 Undifferentiated or Other Model
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 47; Flight Crew Total 10127; Flight Crew Type 7607
Situational Awareness
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Ground Event / Encounter Other / Unknown
Flight Crew Became Reoriented
Human Factors
After pushback was completed in the request for parking brakes to be [set] there was no further communication from the ground crew; but we observed that the tow truck have been moved away from the aircraft and eventually disappeared from our view. I was waiting for engine stabilization and at that time the first officer started his after start flow without waiting for the Captain's call for SET FLAPS 5; AFTER START CHECKLIST. That took me out of my normal flow but I told him to wait as per SOP. I explained the reason is that I needed to check the controls before he could start reading the checklist; [and] that for that the flaps had to be in takeoff position. So I called for F5 after start checklist; I waited for the flaps to reach the takeoff position and I checked the controls; then the first officer read the after start checklist. By now I realized that I had never gotten a salute from the ground crew and I realized the mistake I made by not waiting for this before calling for the checklist. We briefly talked about not having received the salute and the lack of standardization during pushback procedures on international stations. But before taxi I found this very unusual and I tried to talk through the flight interphone down below just wondering if someone was still by the nose of the aircraft and to my surprise the groundcrew person was still connected on the headset but there were no vehicles nearby. The situation [was] extremely dangerous; we could've run over this individual. At that time I told him to disconnect the headset so he did walk away from the aircraft. I gave them the salute but there was no vehicle next to him he walked all the way back to the gate. I am glad I made the call; this could have become a very very bad day for all of us. Later we talked about the importance of following SOPs strictly. Had the first officer not rushed into trying to get his flow done too early; and had I not allowed this [to] happen by waiting until the right sequence of events; we would've noticed there was no salute and that something was not right at that very moment; but anyway we learn from mistakes. We should not allow ourselves to [deviate even] just a little bit from SOPs as simple or silly that they might seem to be.
B767 Captain reported deviating from SOP during a pushback and release procedure at an international station.