B777-200 flight crew on an international polar route reported they were unable to communicate their ...

Attributes
ACN	1319720
Time
Date	201512
Local Time Of Day	1801-2400
Place
Locale Reference	CZQX.ARTCC
State Reference	NF
Environment
Light	Night
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	B777-200
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Cruise
Route In Use	Oceanic
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	First Officer Pilot Not Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Person 2
Function	Captain
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Events
Anomaly	Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe Deviation - Procedural FAR Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy

Narrative:

We [were] flying a polar route and [were] not able to give the required position report passing the fix named resum to gander radio on the assigned HF frequencies. Multiple attempts were made to all possible ATC agencies as well as air-to-air relay attempts with other aircraft and satcom. Cpdlc does not work at this fix and it is my belief that solar activity at the time was disrupting HF communications in the vicinity of resum. Eventually contact was made with the russian controller passing ramel and dispatch on satcom. A crew change was also happening just after this fix and we all were working to make contact with ATC.do not fly polar routes especially when there is solar activity. Also that evening the solar report from dispatch said nothing greater than G2 but my independent NOAA space weather report said G3; so hopefully the pilots are getting accurate info from dispatch.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: B777-200 flight crew on an international polar route reported they were unable to communicate their position probably because of solar activity.

Narrative: We [were] flying a polar route and [were] not able to give the required position report passing the fix named RESUM to GANDER RADIO on the assigned HF frequencies. Multiple attempts were made to all possible ATC agencies as well as air-to-air relay attempts with other aircraft and SATCOM. CPDLC does not work at this fix and it is my belief that SOLAR activity at the time was disrupting HF communications in the vicinity of RESUM. Eventually contact was made with the Russian controller passing RAMEL and dispatch on SATCOM. A crew change was also happening just after this fix and we all were working to make contact with ATC.Do not fly polar routes especially when there is solar activity. Also that evening the solar report from dispatch said nothing greater than G2 but my independent NOAA space weather report said G3; so hopefully the pilots are getting accurate info from dispatch.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.