SF340 captain enroute is alerted by the first officer that she has lost all communications through h...

Narrative:

When we were in cruise flight and the first officer lost communications with me and both comm radios through her headset. She then proceeded to try the company headset and that didn't work. I than told her to go to emergency mode on her audio panel and try to hear the radios. She informed me that she could still not hear either comm radio. It is at that time that I reached down and tried the squelch on the comm #1 radio to see if she could hear the static and the comm #1 radio went completely dark and would not work at all. I than tried to communicate on our comm #2 radio and even though the face was lit; I could not transmit or receive on comm #2. We had just completely lost both comms and my first officer still couldn't talk to me through her audio panel. We started to devise our next plan of action when both comm radios suddenly came back to life. It had been about 2 minutes that we were without comm. When we did hear ATC again; they were informing everyone that there was a stuck mike on the frequency. At this time I let ATC know that it was probably us and what we had completely lost both comms temporarily. I also let them know that I did not want to change frequencies or even touch my radios for fear of another failure. I also asked what routing would they want us on if we lost comm again and they informed us that they wanted us to go direct to the FAF and we would be cleared to land. I also told them that if we lost comm with them again; 'you can consider us to be an emergency aircraft at that point'. We were able to stay on the same approach frequency until we were vectored onto final. It was normal vectors and we did not receive priority. Approach coordinated with tower and gave us our landing clearance before we tried to switch to tower. We switched to tower and communicated for the rest of the flight went without any further problems. Our approach was a normal 7 mile final and they did not clear any aircraft out of our way. We landed and taxied to the gate uneventfully. I can understand why an audio panel and a comm could each individually fail; but I have no idea why we could loose an audio panel and both comms at the same time.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: SF340 Captain enroute is alerted by the First Officer that she has lost all communications through her headset. After numerous other random communication failures and recoveries; the flight crew alerted ATC to their problems; received vectors to the airport and landed uneventfully.

Narrative: When we were in cruise flight and the First Officer lost communications with me and both COMM radios through her headset. She then proceeded to try the company headset and that didn't work. I than told her to go to emergency mode on her audio panel and try to hear the radios. She informed me that she could still not hear either COMM radio. It is at that time that I reached down and tried the squelch on the COMM #1 radio to see if she could hear the static and the COMM #1 radio went completely dark and would not work at all. I than tried to communicate on our COMM #2 radio and even though the face was lit; I could not transmit or receive on COMM #2. We had just completely lost BOTH COMMS and my First Officer still couldn't talk to me through her audio panel. We started to devise our next plan of action when both COMM radios suddenly came back to life. It had been about 2 minutes that we were without COMM. When we did hear ATC again; they were informing everyone that there was a stuck mike on the frequency. At this time I let ATC know that it was probably us and what we had completely lost both COMMS temporarily. I also let them know that I did not want to change frequencies or even touch my radios for fear of another failure. I also asked what routing would they want us on if we lost COMM again and they informed us that they wanted us to go direct to the FAF and we would be cleared to land. I also told them that if we lost COMM with them again; 'you can consider us to be an emergency aircraft at that point'. We were able to stay on the same approach frequency until we were vectored onto final. It was normal vectors and we did not receive priority. Approach coordinated with Tower and gave us our landing clearance before we tried to switch to Tower. We switched to Tower and communicated for the rest of the flight went without any further problems. Our approach was a normal 7 mile final and they did not clear any aircraft out of our way. We landed and taxied to the gate uneventfully. I can understand why an audio panel and a COMM could each individually fail; but I have no idea why we could loose an audio panel and both COMMS at the same time.

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.

Attributes
ACN	843307
Time
Date	200907
Local Time Of Day	0601-1200
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.Airport
State Reference	US
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	SF 340B
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Cruise
Flight Plan	IFR
Component
Aircraft Component	Communication Systems
Person 1
Function	Captain Pilot Not Flying
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 13 Flight Crew Total 4000 Flight Crew Type 2100
Events
Anomaly	Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe

SF340 captain enroute is alerted by the first officer that she has lost all communications through her headset. After numerous other random communication failures and recoveries; the flight crew alerted ATC to their problems; received vectors to the airport and landed uneventfully.