Lost comm in tml area

Let'sgoflying!

Let'sgoflying!

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Dave Taylor
Today going into Austin, I was within 5-7 miles and 40 degrees of intercepting the localizer at I think 4000' (close to gs intercept alt that far out) when a SWA mic got stuck on apprch. It turned out to be just before our last vector.
Someone interpret the regs and tell me what I should have done, and then I will tell you what I planned to do. Our last clearance was an altitude, heading and expect 17L. I had tcas so I could see all the traffic lined up nicely for the parallel approaches in use.
The stuck mic cleared pretty quickly and it turned out fine. :)
Warm in Austin today - 21C, it was 0C when I left the house!
 
I would say lost comm procedures would apply. You were told to expect clearance for approach for 17L so continue the approach as expected. Fly it as normal. At least you had TCAS to assist in traffic avoidance.
 
KennyFlys said:
I would say lost comm procedures would apply. You were told to expect clearance for approach for 17L so continue the approach as expected. Fly it as normal.
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I agree with that action but have questions on what else to do.

1) If talking to approach try contacting the tower or non-towered change over or monitor CTAF?

2) if already talking to tower fly the approach, squawk 7600 and watch the tower for light signals during the approach?
 
I had something almost like this once and monitored tower on my number two radio. When we got closer in, I asked tower if we could proceed it. Other folks had the same thing happening and were also going to tower.

Best,

Dave
 
I have had that on tower frequency before (don't recall where... might have been AUS or SGR). I just called them up on GND, and they proceeded as normal, transmitting on both frequencies.

If that had happened to me, on APP, I might have dialed-up the other APP frequency, but calling TWR makes good sense.
 
I'm with Ken, and would continue the approach, but I would also try calling the controlling facility on 121.5 -- a one-touch move for me as I always have 121.5 up on my #2 comm.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Today going into Austin, I was within 5-7 miles and 40 degrees of intercepting the localizer at I think 4000' (close to gs intercept alt that far out) when a SWA mic got stuck on apprch. It turned out to be just before our last vector.
Someone interpret the regs and tell me what I should have done, and then I will tell you what I planned to do. Our last clearance was an altitude, heading and expect 17L. I had tcas so I could see all the traffic lined up nicely for the parallel approaches in use.
The stuck mic cleared pretty quickly and it turned out fine. :)
Warm in Austin today - 21C, it was 0C when I left the house!
Click to expand...

I would have switched over to ground control, or clearance delivery if ground's freq was too close to tower freq. On more than one occasion at Boeing Field I have said "Ground control, BigBird 1234X on the 45, unable to contact tower" and proceeded to land normally.

Bob Gardner
 
Yall are right, and it was a very brief outage and no real problem. Gets you to thinking, however.
Yes follow the procedures that provides for the situation (ifr lost comms) plus, atc had us all lined up in a nice neat trail, so no one do anything crazy and it will all work out.
I was planning on intercepting (a larger angle than usual - but not wild) and flying the ils as usual, and being the slow one, I would have kept my speed up to 180+ to the marker as is typically requested.
I had 121.5 up already and was poised to transmit, and tower was on stdby of our #1 as well, so we had comm good backups if needed.
All I can say is Its A Great Idea that atc xmitters have a lot more power than a/c radios do. Shortly after, I was just barely able to hear that appr. transmitted us a new vector and app clearance so I responded through the noise and mentioned that we were monitoring guard in case he needed that......and soon after we were back to normal. If we hadn't I would have gone to tower and hoped he had us on the brite or was talking to apprch.
I didn't consider 7600, I think that might confuse them if 10 planes all had the same idea!
If I had been sharp I might have transmitted on 21.5 "check your mic, stuck mic on 119.0!", most with 2 radios listen out on guard.

Makes me want to review 'what will I do' in the event of lost comm; for each phase of flight again.
 
That close to making an approach and having received an EFC, I'm not sure if it would be good to squawk 7600 at that point. It sounds like you were about to begin the approach so your hands would be full. They had your blip marked and ID' so it might be more prudent to remain on the same squawk and fly the airplane as expected.

Folks correct me if I'm wrong.

This is all assuming there are no alternatives on comm. In my earlier post, I failed to address what Ron and others addressed such as using guard or calling another approach frequency or perhaps even the tower frequency you would be turned over to.
 
It's even more interesting if the airplane with the stuck mic is you. :redface:
 
KennyFlys said:
Have you been guilty? :)
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That's affirm. It's not that easy to diagnose. All you hear is silence. Newer radios have a XMIT light but older ones don't.

At least we weren't talking about gall bladder surgery like a crew with a stuck mic I heard once...
 
Everskyward said:
That's affirm. It's not that easy to diagnose. All you hear is silence. Newer radios have a XMIT light but older ones don't.

At least we weren't talking about gall bladder surgery like a crew with a stuck mic I heard once...
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My favorite was the Jet Blue departure from JFK keeping the mic keyed and calling the climb checklist. When they finally unkeyed, the controller said, "Great checklist usage!" Then he turned them over to NY departure. :)
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
If I had been sharp I might have transmitted on 21.5 "check your mic, stuck mic on 119.0!", most with 2 radios listen out on guard.
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While most folks with two radios monitor guard, calling them for a stuck mike is useless -- a keyed mike cuts out both receivers.
 
One of the guys on the Beech list admits to singing along with the radio not realizing he was keying the mike on the way back from Oshkosh! Don't know if I'd ever fess up to that! Said he received quite a few comments when he let off the xmit key <g> Most rated his singing as pretty poor.

Best,

Dave
 
Just FYI, you can get a stuck mic even if the button on the mic or push-to-talk doesn't appear to be depressed. You can have an internal short or loose connection that causes it. And it can be intermittent. :rolleyes:
 
My favorite is when crews (seems like it's often Southwest) do their cabin PAs over the radio...that's always good for a laugh. "That was pretty, now you want to tell your passengers all that?" was my favorite response from PHX approach after SW gave what I think was the Gettysburg Address over their freq.

We had a fun little stuck mic incident this week, actually....ended with shooting an NDB approach with no interphone and being stuck in Rockland for a night...fun times.
 
Everskyward said:
Just FYI, you can get a stuck mic even if the button on the mic or push-to-talk doesn't appear to be depressed. You can have an internal short or loose connection that causes it. And it can be intermittent. :rolleyes:
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Ha...that's what our's was...the button's innards actually broke. It certainly wasn't intermittent, though; that sounds like you might have a fun story...?
 
Teller1900 said:
that sounds like you might have a fun story...?
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It's been at least a couple years so I don't remember all the details but... There we were, climbing out of LAX going empty back to Denver in a Lear 55. I was the captain and non-flying pilot, so I was the one using the radio. During the departure phase it seemed like sometimes I would transmit and get no reply but I chalked that up to the controllers being busy or something. We were eventually handed off to LA Center and were cleared to FL240. I'm not sure when we suspected there was something wrong, probably when I asked for higher (I had most likely filed 390 or 410) and got no response. I tried the other radio but that didn't work either, and neither did my hand mic (I had been using a headset with a PTT on the yoke). Then I had my flying buddy try transmitting on both his headset and mic. Nothing. So we kind of looked at each other and reluctantly decided to go to 7600. I know for myself, when something starts to go wrong I first get the feeling of disbelief, then I think it's something I must be doing stupid, as in "operator error". This was not too long after the incident where LA Center lost communication over some of their frequencies so I decided to try 121.5. Amazingly someone answered and we were able to communicate for a short while. They said, "we see you squawking 7600, see if you can contact center on <some other frequency>. I tried that and... nothing. I went back to guard and... nothing. By now we were coming up over the Sierras and I was thinking that the next reasonable airport to land at is Las Vegas. We discussed landing there but I wasn't quite ready to give it up yet because we had sporadic communication and I didn't really want to go into Las Vegas NORDO, in a jet. So I gave it a few more tries. All of a sudden I heard, "There's someone with a stuck mic on guard." The light bulb in my head finally illuminated and we pulled all the mics out of the jacks, both hand mics, both headsets, and both O2 masks. Now we could hear everything. I heard someone say, "I can hear a woman trying to call on guard." Then someone else said, "Yeah we can hear everything she's saying." :redface: After that we cautiously plugged in one hand mic and tried again. It worked. Controllers were happy, we were happy, end of story. It ended up being an intermittent short in the wire of the PTT on the yoke that I was using.

What I learned is that if you can't hear anything on either radio, suspect that one of the mics is stuck. The fact that it was intermittent made it hard to diagnose.
 
Ron Levy said:
While most folks with two radios monitor guard, calling them for a stuck mike is useless -- a keyed mike cuts out both receivers.
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This means that every airplane with a keyed mic loses the capability of hearing anything on the other radio.

You could be right, but I am trying to imagine that....

For example, when I am keying my mic on the left side, and talking to flightwatch or the fbo on comm 2, the pilot on the right side does not lose the capability to listen out for center or approach on comm 1.

So I think it would have worked, with the SW guy that had the jammed button in Austin. One of the pilots would have heard me.
 
Ron Levy said:
I'm with Ken, and would continue the approach, but I would also try calling the controlling facility on 121.5 -- a one-touch move for me as I always have 121.5 up on my #2 comm.
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I like the "call the tower freq" plan better. If it is busy, the approach controller will probably try to contact the stuck mike pilot on 121.5.
This is just my opinion (don't quote me).
:blueplane:
ApacheBob
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
This means that every airplane with a keyed mic loses the capability of hearing anything on the other radio.
Click to expand...
Correct in most all cases.
For example, when I am keying my mic on the left side, and talking to flightwatch or the fbo on comm 2, the pilot on the right side does not lose the capability to listen out for center or approach on comm 1.
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Yes, there are audio panels which allow the pilot/CP sides to be split, and in that case, the person with the stuck mike can't hear anything (usually including the intercom), but the other person can the radio he's on.
So I think it would have worked, with the SW guy that had the jammed button in Austin. One of the pilots would have heard me.
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I'm pretty sure the only time the airlines operate split comm is if one is on ATC and the other is on company or ATIS, and then they wouldn't hear the "stuck mic" call on Guard.
 
ApacheBob said:
I like the "call the tower freq" plan better. If it is busy, the approach controller will probably try to contact the stuck mike pilot on 121.5.
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Yeah, that's probably a better idea. But if that didn't work, I'd switch to Guard.
 
Ron Levy said:
I'm pretty sure the only time the airlines operate split comm is if one is on ATC and the other is on company or ATIS, and then they wouldn't hear the "stuck mic" call on Guard.
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That's the way we do it. Only the Non-flying pilot goes "off one" to call company or get the ATIS, while the FP is "on one." Com 2 is used for only non-ATC freqs (company, fingers, ATIS, CTAF prior to freq change) while Com 1 is used only for ATC communication. When we had our stuck mic incident this week we ended up switching ATC over to com 2 until we figured out what was going on, and that it was the CA's mic not the #1 com radio. During the whole thing, though, with his mic keyed we had no interphone and neither of us could hear anything on the freq that the CA's mic selector is on, but I could hear on the radio he wasn't on and talk on either without problem. Thankfully we have a third mic position, PA, so he could free up both coms. It just meant we had no interphone for the NDB approach and as the flying pilot I had to run the radios until we finally figured out what was going on well enough that he could take the plane and let me use the radios.
 
Well I tried it tonight and it does work....however it seems like an impracticality if no one is listening.

Switching to flares.
 
bobmrg said:
I would have switched over to ground control, or clearance delivery if ground's freq was too close to tower freq. On more than one occasion at Boeing Field I have said "Ground control, BigBird 1234X on the 45, unable to contact tower" and proceeded to land normally.

Bob Gardner
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Bob,

Why go to Ground Control or Clearance Delivery? He was still on a vector to intercept the localizer, so I think it's safe to assume (if it's ever safe to assume) he was still with Approach Control, not Tower.
 
Obviously going to tower is a lot easier, but the AF/D has the numbers for all of the ARTCCs in the back.

Pull out that nifty little paper weight and dial 'em up.

~ Christopher
 
jwriteclub said:
Obviously going to tower is a lot easier, but the AF/D has the numbers for all of the ARTCCs in the back. Pull out that nifty little paper weight and dial 'em up.
Click to expand...
Since you've [probably] already got tower dialed in on the flip-flop, and tower has a hotline to the approach controller who owns that approach sector, you can sort things out in a heartbeat if you just flip-flop and call tower. The other way, you have to dig out the A/FD, find the right page, figure out what Center you're in, then what sector, then hope that sector has a direct line to the approach sector you're working -- much slower and lower probability of success.
 
Ron Levy said:
Since you've [probably] already got tower dialed in on the flip-flop, and tower has a hotline to the approach controller who owns that approach sector, you can sort things out in a heartbeat if you just flip-flop and call tower. The other way, you have to dig out the A/FD, find the right page, figure out what Center you're in, then what sector, then hope that sector has a direct line to the approach sector you're working -- much slower and lower probability of success.
Click to expand...

I agree with you that if the radios are working that contacting the tower is faster and more efficient. In addition, this close to being finished with the approach, I would just fly the airplane.

I was just pointing out that time permitting there is another way.

~ Christopher
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
in fact, he said as much.
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Poor communication on my part. My real question was why Bob said he would have "switched over to ground control, or clearance delivery if ground's freq was too close to tower freq." when the obvious action is to contact tower.
 
kkoran said:
Bob,

Why go to Ground Control or Clearance Delivery? He was still on a vector to intercept the localizer, so I think it's safe to assume (if it's ever safe to assume) he was still with Approach Control, not Tower.
Click to expand...

Good point. In that case, I would go to the tower (who is in interphone contact with approach) and tell the controller what is going on. My point is that lost-communications procedures should not come into play until all methods of communication have been exhausted.

Bob Gardner
 
bobmrg said:
Good point. In that case, I would go to the tower (who is in interphone contact with approach) and tell the controller what is going on. My point is that lost-communications procedures should not come into play until all methods of communication have been exhausted.

Bob Gardner
Click to expand...
Agreed. Continue approach and use all comm options. I'd start with tower since that is the next step in normal procedures
 
kkoran said:
Poor communication on my part. My real question was why Bob said he would have "switched over to ground control, or clearance delivery if ground's freq was too close to tower freq." when the obvious action is to contact tower.
Click to expand...

Because I missed the fact that he was talking to Approach? I thought that he was unable to reach the local controller, thus my advice. Your solution is "obvious" only if the respondent (me) visualizes the situation correctly. My bad.

Bob
 
Everskyward said:
It's even more interesting if the airplane with the stuck mic is you. :redface:
Click to expand...

You gotta love it when you hear two pilots in a plane with a stuck mic talking about how they can't hear the tower for some reason.
 
lancefisher said:
You gotta love it when you hear two pilots in a plane with a stuck mic talking about how they can't hear the tower for some reason.
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Worst stuck mic I ever heard WAS the tower. I forget what the conversation was, but it was very, uh, unprofessional and lasted several minutes. When the rookie working that freq discovered the problem, he was clearly embarrassed and started making all his calls fast, short and crisp. Oops!
 
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