Narrative:

When I received my dispatch release for the flight I noticed that under notams for local distant and fdc my paperwork indicated nil. I thought that this was odd since I could clearly see a big X standing on runway 02-20 in front of me. I had my first officer ask local if he had any notams and he replied yes; several. I immediately notified my dispatcher of this problem. I was then told that they were having 'software issue' and eventually I received a fax with the appropriate notams for my flight. We continued on to iad and once we were parked I instructed my first officer to contact his friend in the plane next to us that was calling for a push and see if they had their notams. The answer we received shocked me. Their dispatch release also indicated notams nil and they hadn't been contacted by dispatch to let them know this wasn't correct. At this point I started checking with all the carrier planes that were around me to see if any of them had be contacted; the answer was no. I again called dispatch and inquired with the supervisor why he was dispatching planes knowing that they didn't have the appropriate notams (any notams). He told me that they were trying to contact pilots via their cell phone but nobody was answering. I then asked why he couldn't put a 'heads up' on all releases to call dispatch at which he replied 'I am too busy talking to you to do anything' so I hung up the phone. I know for a fact that no attempt to contact pilots was made and nothing was done to remedy the problem until the director of operations was woken up by a concerned union representative. As a recap I just want to point out that dispatch was made aware of the problem in the morning. They continued to dispatch plane knowing there was a problem.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Despite an advisory from the reporter that appropriate NOTAMs were not being provided to flight crews; air carrier Dispatchers continued to dispatch flights without required NOTAMS and failed to advise such flights.

Narrative: When I received my dispatch release for the flight I noticed that under NOTAMs for local distant and FDC my paperwork indicated NIL. I thought that this was odd since I could clearly see a big X standing on Runway 02-20 in front of me. I had my First Officer ask local if he had any NOTAMs and he replied yes; several. I immediately notified my Dispatcher of this problem. I was then told that they were having 'software issue' and eventually I received a fax with the appropriate NOTAMs for my flight. We continued on to IAD and once we were parked I instructed my First Officer to contact his friend in the plane next to us that was calling for a push and see if they had their NOTAMs. The answer we received shocked me. Their dispatch release also indicated NOTAMs NIL and they hadn't been contacted by Dispatch to let them know this wasn't correct. At this point I started checking with all the carrier planes that were around me to see if any of them had be contacted; the answer was no. I again called Dispatch and inquired with the supervisor why he was dispatching planes knowing that they didn't have the appropriate NOTAMs (any NOTAMs). He told me that they were trying to contact pilots via theIR cell phone but nobody was answering. I then asked why he couldn't put a 'heads up' on all releases to call Dispatch at which he replied 'I am too busy talking to you to do anything' so I hung up the phone. I know for a fact that no attempt to contact pilots was made and nothing was done to remedy the problem until the Director of Operations was woken up by a concerned union representative. As a recap I just want to point out that Dispatch was made aware of the problem in the morning. They continued to dispatch plane knowing there was a problem.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 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.