Widebody Transport
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Situational Awareness; Distraction; Communication Breakdown; Workload
ATC Issue All Types; Aircraft Equipment Problem Critical; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural FAR; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
General None Reported / Taken
ATC Equipment / Nav Facility / Buildings; Airport; Procedure
There have recently been a lot of difficulties involved in communication with Faleolo [Pago Pago] so I made sure I thoroughly checked the NOTAMs and company information before flight. Indications were that VHF 118.1 and 126.9 were inoperative; so we should contact them on 118.5; with a couple of HF frequencies also listed; plus their phone number. Upon descent; Auckland told us to contact Faleolo on 118.1...huh; what; thought that was supposed to be inoperative!? Anyway; we tried 118.1; then 118.5; then 126.9; then HF 6553...sporadic contact at best...we could hear a few words; but then it would break up. Having flown to NSTU multiple times I know the general sequence of clearances (although this leads to a potential problem of anticipated hearing); so I could read back what I thought the clearance was; and when they acknowledged that my readback was correct; we knew we had a valid clearance. Communications got progressively more difficult as we descended; and finally we could not get contact at all; on any frequency. Continued and made a normal landing. After parking; we wondered whether we could contact Faleolo on the provided phone number; so we tried to call them on SATCOM and were unable. We found that we could call any number on the directory but were unable to call any number where we had to manually enter a phone number.The ideal resolution of this problem would be one in which Faleolo fixed their radios! The next best solution would be to make it possible for flight crews to enter phone numbers in the SATCOM and make a call. We speculated that this may have been disabled to prevent crewmembers from making frivolous calls...sad that the company can entrust us with a $120 million dollar airplane and hundreds of lives; but doesn't think they can trust us with a satphone! If the company is going to prevent us from dialing a manually entered phone number; what is the point of listing the Faleolo tower phone number on the paperwork issued to the pilots...we can't do anything with it. That would be like telling me the JFK weather on a flight from HNL to NSTU- there isn't anything I can do with this information; so it just wastes my time to have it listed. 3) Take the airspace away from Faleolo and give it to Auckland. The problem at this point is mainly one of distraction of flight crews; and annoyance at the difficulty in communication...but; what if there had been another airplane on approach; or holding; and we couldn't hear Faleolo to find out that information? Then this could have escalated to a serious safety problem.
A widebody Captain addressed serious communications problems with Faleolo Control when flying in and out of NSTU (Pago Pago). The essence of the problem is that communication is essentially unavailable through any published or NOTAMed frequencies.