Narrative:

We were cleared to pushback; and pushback began normally. When we were cleared to start engines by the pushback crew; the sound of the #2 engine became loud on our flight interphone. I was unable to communicate with the pushback crew due to the noise during the rest of the pushback. I could barely hear them; and they could not hear me at all despite my several attempts to call them during the pushback. The pushback crew used hand signals to disconnect; and I could not tell them to stay due to the noise. We then attempted to contact station operations to have the crew come back to investigate the noise; since I suspected at the time that they had somehow left the plug to their headset in the headphone jack on the outside of the aircraft. After several attempted radio calls to station operations; we then attempted contact through [ramp] control and company dispatch to call the station operations to get their attention. In the meantime [another aircraft] taxied by us and notified [ramp] control that there was a complete headset hanging off of the outside of our airplane. We were finally able to get a hold of station operations by very weak radio communications. The pushback/ramp personnel then returned to remove the headset from the aircraft and confirm no open panels.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: B737 Captain reported communication difficulties during pushback; due to the improper use of a headset by the ground crew.

Narrative: We were cleared to pushback; and pushback began normally. When we were cleared to start engines by the pushback crew; the sound of the #2 engine became loud on our flight interphone. I was unable to communicate with the pushback crew due to the noise during the rest of the pushback. I could barely hear them; and they could not hear me at all despite my several attempts to call them during the pushback. The pushback crew used hand signals to disconnect; and I could not tell them to stay due to the noise. We then attempted to contact station operations to have the crew come back to investigate the noise; since I suspected at the time that they had somehow left the plug to their headset in the headphone jack on the outside of the aircraft. After several attempted radio calls to station operations; we then attempted contact through [Ramp] Control and Company Dispatch to call the station operations to get their attention. In the meantime [another aircraft] taxied by us and notified [Ramp] Control that there was a complete headset hanging off of the outside of our airplane. We were finally able to get a hold of station operations by very weak radio communications. The pushback/ramp personnel then returned to remove the headset from the aircraft and confirm no open panels.

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.