Commercial Fixed Wing
Communication Breakdown
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
General None Reported / Taken
Equipment / Tooling; Procedure
My night supervisor briefed out that our Hand Held Radios will be down for an hour starting at approximately XA30. Our gate manager got on the radio approximately XA45 and announced that all radio communication will be down within 15 minutes for an hour. [Night Supervisor] came in and talked to us and said to wait in the break room and our dispatcher will call us on the break room phone if the dispatcher needed anything or to assign us an assignment and that he [Night Supervisor] is going to be heading out for the evening. At XB07 we got a call to move an aircraft. I asked the dispatcher if we were allowed to move aircraft with no radio communication. He responded that he doesn't know and if we don't feel safe on doing it; to hold off. I texted my night supervisor at XB10 and asked him if it was okay for us to move aircraft with no radio communication. He called me at XB14 and said to hold off on the move and he's talking to the morning supervisor. We held off on our move and went out to hook up ground power [to] aircraft for cleaners. Towards the end of our shift at XB45 we went to pick up our night dispatcher and when he got into the truck he told us that [morning supervisor] told us to call him. [Someone] called him on her personal cell phone and [morning supervisor] asked why we were denying work and assignments. We explained to [morning supervisor] that we had concerns of safety on moving aircraft without radio communication and per our training we are supposed to use the radios as a tool to communicate with your partner and for any event of an emergency situations and being that there had been past incidents with results of aircraft damage from lack of not communicating via radios; and we let him know that our night Supervisor told us to hold off on the move. He continued to question us on the safety concern and refusing the assignment.
Ground personnel reported that due to hand held radios being unuseable; normal work assignments were not being accomplished.