B747 Undifferentiated or Other Model
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 200; Flight Crew Total 20000; Flight Crew Type 1500
Communication Breakdown; Situational Awareness; Time Pressure; Workload
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural FAR; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Flight Deck / Cabin / Aircraft Event Other / Unknown
Flight Crew Overcame Equipment Problem; Flight Crew Requested ATC Assistance / Clarification
Aircraft; Company Policy; Procedure; Environment - Non Weather Related
I accepted [the] B747-400 with the normal SATCOM High Gain deferred inop. The MEL had the CB's pulled; capped and we were assured only the voice capabilities were inop. Since the airplane was equipped with the new system for voice; the SATCOM data connection was not deferred and both HF Radios were operating normally the flight should not have been affected in any way.Shortly after coasting out the data connection became intermittent; however VHF communication was still strong and CPDLC seemed to continue to make position reports without trouble. From 20 West to just past 70 West; CPDLC was spotty at best; we lost VHF and HF communications; but we still had the new system for voice calling via SATCOM. But the real problem I found was the Directory for the new system calling function contained erroneous telephone numbers for the ATC along the route and two others I attempted to call. I did get a hold of Dispatch without any problems except the sector of this flight was not pre-programmed into the Directory. I was also informed by Maintenance Control we could not access the Directory and use the phone number provided to us by Iceland Radio because Company policy would not allow in-flight additions or modifications to the SATCOM Directory.On this flight I also had as an additional crewmember; a FAA Inspector was on board. He was concerned about the non-working telephone numbers and the fact that we as a crew did not have access to use the number provided by Iceland Radio as an ATC backup. I did purchase the onboard WIFI in as an experiment to see if we communicate via VOIP; email and text messaging; but found VOIP was disabled and the email was unsatisfactorily slow.Overall the flight; under my command; had no way to immediately contact ATC and essentially; with the exception of voice contact with Dispatch (the wrong sector initially) we were in a NO COMM situation and that is unsatisfactory.
A B747 lost all communications except voice calling during a high latitude oceanic flight and because Company policy allowed only preprogrammed SATCOM dialing; the crew was unable to dial ATC numbers to maintain contact.