B737 Undifferentiated or Other Model
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Situational Awareness
Conflict Ground Conflict; Critical; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Ground Event / Encounter Aircraft
Aircraft Aircraft Damaged; Flight Crew Returned To Gate; General Flight Cancelled / Delayed
Airport; Procedure; Human Factors
Just prior to push; we received a runway change and First Officer (FO) was reprogramming Weight and Balance. I noticed the Ground Crew stopped our push a bit short. I looked around and saw that the aircraft that had pushed off Gate to our left was very close. I was not aware that they had pushed. I did not hear their Ramp call and the jetway blocked my view during their push. Our wingtips were possibly overlapping.A Ground Ops person was between the aircraft and was signaling the other Crew to hold their brakes by raising a closed fist. He did not cross his forearms in the standard signal. As the other aircraft made its left turn out; the Ground Ops person did not make any overt signals for them to stop. My assumption was that he was marshalling and that there was clearance between the two aircraft; so I made no attempt to contact the other aircraft via radio. The other aircraft taxied out and there was no indication of contact.The Ground Ops person that appeared to be marshaling the other aircraft then came to our aircraft got on the headset and told us that the other aircraft and ours touched winglets. We returned to the gate; shutdown; and made a visual inspection of our aircraft with Maintenance. There was no indication of damage to our aircraft.During the discussions after we returned to our gate; the Agent told the First Officer that he noticed the Push Crew pushed our aircraft approximately eight feet to the west of our J-line. This was not apparent to us from the flight deck.We contacted Dispatch and Maintenance. After deplaning; completing the logbook entry; and discussing the situation with the Operations Center; the Chief Pilot on Call released us to continue the flight on a new aircraft.The other aircraft proceeded to take off and was recalled. Union Safety contacted me the next day and told us that no damage was found on either aircraft. While it was close; the two aircraft did not actually touch.
[Report narrative contained no additional information.]
The flight crew of a Boeing 737 reported that during push-back an adjacent aircraft was also being pushed-back and the winglets may have touched.