Planes get towed to the gate primarily because running jet engines near terminal buildings is dangerous. The exhaust from even a mid-size aircraft can reach hurricane-force winds of nearly 100 knots, extending more than 200 feet behind the plane. That kind of force can injure or kill ground workers, blow over equipment, and even shatter terminal windows. Towing with a specialized vehicle lets the airline position the aircraft precisely without any of those risks.
Jet Blast Is the Main Safety Concern
A jet engine doesn’t just push a plane forward. It blasts superheated air backward at enormous speed. According to NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System, that exhaust plume can extend more than 200 feet behind larger aircraft at dangerous velocities. One incident report described how a single aircraft doing a hard turn on a congested ramp “blew out terminal windows, knocked over a ramp truck, put the elevators of two aircraft into the full up position, and damaged miscellaneous air freight cargo equipment.” During a full-power engine run, debris was observed blowing up to 1,500 feet away.
Gate areas are tight spaces packed with baggage carts, fuel trucks, catering vehicles, and dozens of ground crew. Firing up jet engines in that environment would be reckless. So instead, a tug pushes or pulls the aircraft with its engines completely off.
When and Where Towing Happens
Towing isn’t just for gate arrivals. Aircraft get towed in several common scenarios:
- Pushback from the gate: This is the most visible tow. The plane can’t back up on its own, so a tug pushes it away from the terminal until it has enough room to start engines and taxi to the runway.
- Repositioning between gates: If an airline needs to move a plane to a different gate (say, for a schedule change or maintenance swap), towing is faster and safer than starting up the engines for a 200-yard move.
- Moving to and from hangars: High-speed tugs regularly shuttle aircraft between terminal gates and maintenance hangars, sometimes across large distances on the airfield.
- Arriving from remote parking: When gates are full, planes park on remote stands. They’re often towed to a gate once one opens up, rather than burning fuel to taxi a short distance.
The FAA’s general rule is straightforward: do not tow aircraft with engines operating. The one notable exception is pushback, where an airline may start engines while still connected to the tug to save time on departure.
How the Tug Actually Steers a Plane
An aircraft’s nose wheel steering is hydraulically powered, meaning it normally responds to inputs from the cockpit. If you tried to tow the plane with that system still active, the hydraulic pressure would fight against the tug’s movements. That resistance could damage the steering actuators, cause hydraulic leaks, or put structural stress on the entire nose gear assembly.
To prevent this, ground crews insert a small but critical component called a bypass pin into the steering mechanism before every tow. This pin disconnects hydraulic pressure from the steering circuit, allowing the tug to freely control the direction of the nose wheel. Forgetting the bypass pin is a serious error that can lead to expensive damage, which is why verifying it’s in place is a standard checklist item.
Towbar vs. Towbarless Tugs
Two main types of tug handle aircraft on the ground. Conventional tugs use a rigid towbar that connects the vehicle to the nose gear with a pin. They’re simple, reliable, and common for small to mid-size aircraft. The drawback is that different aircraft types often need different towbars, and connecting them takes time.
Towbarless tugs take a different approach. They cradle and lift the nose wheel directly, gripping it from underneath. This makes hookup faster and eliminates the need for aircraft-specific towbars. These tugs are preferred for large jets and busy terminals where turnaround time matters. High-speed towbarless models can move aircraft across the airport at significant speed, though the FAA has noted that these “super tugs” towing unpowered aircraft at night can be hard for air traffic controllers to spot, since the aircraft itself may have no lights on.
Wing Walkers Keep Things From Getting Clipped
A commercial aircraft’s wingspan can stretch well over 100 feet, and the tug driver sits low to the ground with limited visibility. That’s where wing walkers come in. These are ground crew members who walk alongside the wingtips during a tow, watching for obstacles the driver can’t see. They stay in constant radio or hand-signal contact with the driver, and their job is to call a stop before a wingtip, engine nacelle, or tail section clips another aircraft, a jetbridge, or a building.
Standard practice calls for wing walkers any time part of the aircraft comes within 30 feet of an obstacle taller than about 3 feet. If the clearance drops below 10 feet, the aircraft shouldn’t be moving at all. Wing walkers also monitor the towing speed and will tell the driver to slow down if the plane is approaching an obstacle faster than they can safely judge the gap.
Noise Rules Can Require Towing
Some airports mandate towing in specific areas to control noise. At Boston’s Logan Airport, for instance, regulations prohibit jet or turboprop aircraft from operating under their own power in certain hangar areas. Any movement beyond designated ramp boundaries must be done under tow, both coming in and going out. These rules typically target late-night hours or areas near residential neighborhoods, where the roar of taxiing jet engines would violate noise abatement standards.
The Environmental Upside
Jet engines burn an enormous amount of fuel on the ground. Even a short taxi from a remote stand to a gate can consume hundreds of pounds of jet fuel. Replacing that taxi with a tug, especially an electric one, cuts emissions significantly.
Research modeling the carbon cost of ground handling found that electric tugs produce 2.5 times less CO2 than diesel-powered tugs for pushback operations. At a European low-cost terminal with just six gates, switching entirely to electric tugs eliminated an estimated 253 tonnes of CO2 per year. Even in a worst-case scenario where the electricity comes entirely from coal-fired power plants, electric tugs still reduce total emissions by a factor of 2.5 compared to diesel alternatives. When the grid is cleaner, the reduction factor climbs to over 4. Airlines increasingly view electric towing as one of the easier ways to shrink their ground-level carbon footprint without changing anything about the flight itself.