EMB ERJ 170/175 ER/LR
Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP); Flight Crew Multiengine
Communication Breakdown; Situational Awareness
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Ground Event / Encounter Other / Unknown
General Flight Cancelled / Delayed; General Maintenance Action
Company Policy; Human Factors
On our flight we got pushed off of the gate. After the push; the ramp crew was taking longer time than usual to disconnect the tow bar upon which I asked them if everything was okay. Their response was everything is okay and they continued disconnecting the tow bar. Once the tow bar was disconnected we got the usual tug tow bar wave off and the rampers went on their way. Me and the First Officer started our engines and completed our After Start checklist and went on our way to taxiing. Until this time we had no idea what had happened. When we were No.1 for takeoff tower told us to contact ops upon which we came to know that the ramp crew had snapped the tow bar and ops wanted us to taxi back and park on the hard stand for the maintenance crew to take a look at the airplane. I told them that the hard stand is not going to work for us as maintenance has to sign the logbook after they are completed inspecting the aircraft and that we need a gate to park on which we got a gate.Once we were at the gate maintenance took a look at the airplane; signed the logbook; and gave us the green signal saying everything is okay and we can continue on our way. All this delay and the safety hazard could have been resolved way before if the ramp crew did their job properly by telling us earlier that the tow bar had snapped and we could have called maintenance on time.
E170 Captain reported that a towbar broke during pushback; resulting in a return to the gate.