An A320 ground crew headset became inoperative during pushback at sea but the ground crew continued ...

Attributes
ACN	989688
Time
Date	201201
Local Time Of Day	0601-1200
Place
Locale Reference	SEA.Airport
State Reference	WA
Environment
Flight Conditions	IMC
Light	Daylight
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	A320
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Taxi
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	Pilot Not Flying First Officer
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 120 Flight Crew Total 6000 Flight Crew Type 1500
Person 2
Function	Pilot Flying Captain
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 220 Flight Crew Total 18000 Flight Crew Type 8200
Events
Anomaly	Conflict Ground Conflict Less Severe Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy Ground Event / Encounter Other / Unknown

Narrative:

We were in seattle and needed to get de-iced. The ramp personnel were having difficulty with the headset and were unable to communicate with us. We used the operations frequency to coordinate the push for de-ice and were pushed just slightly off the gate with clearance from seattle ramp. The captain was using hand signals and when the de-icing was complete the ground crew requested us to release brakes and we did. They began to push us further back and we had not gotten further clearance from seattle ramp. As we were pushing; I called ramp and told them our ground crew had begun to push us back and we weren't able to communicate with them. Ramp said it was okay but were not happy that we started pushing without further clearance. In addition we never got a clear to start engines and had to go through operations to get the ground crew back out to clear us to start engines.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: An A320 Ground Crew headset became inoperative during pushback at SEA but the Ground Crew continued pushback after deicing without Ramp or flight crew clearance and blocked another aircraft.

Narrative: We were in Seattle and needed to get de-iced. The ramp personnel were having difficulty with the headset and were unable to communicate with us. We used the Operations frequency to coordinate the push for de-ice and were pushed just slightly off the gate with clearance from Seattle Ramp. The Captain was using hand signals and when the de-icing was complete the ground crew requested us to release brakes and we did. They began to push us further back and we had not gotten further clearance from Seattle Ramp. As we were pushing; I called Ramp and told them our ground crew had begun to push us back and we weren't able to communicate with them. Ramp said it was okay but were not happy that we started pushing without further clearance. In addition we never got a clear to start engines and had to go through Operations to get the ground crew back out to clear us to start engines.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of July 2013 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.

An A320 ground crew headset became inoperative during pushback at sea but the ground crew continued pushback after deicing without ramp or flight crew clearance and blocked another aircraft.