With all the literal and figurative bells and whistles in today’s cockpits, something as mundane as losing communications with ATC is rare. One reason is the stuff we have in the panel these days is a couple of light years ahead of even two decades ago in reliability. But loss of communications—going “no radio,” or Nordo—thanks to our installed avionics isn’t the only failure mode we might encounter. In fact, your airplane and its equipment may not even be the problem.
Two recent events highlighted by NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) in its monthly Safety Bulletin cover a wide range of possible communication failures, and include excellent reminders of how to apply the lost-comm requirements found in FAR 91.185 and explained in paragraph 6-4-1 of the Aeronautical Information Manual (AIM).
