Flight Crew Multiengine; Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 192; Flight Crew Total 3656; Flight Crew Type 1181
Communication Breakdown
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Ground Event / Encounter Other / Unknown
Flight Crew Overcame Equipment Problem
Equipment / Tooling
Prior to pushback from the gate; at night and in the rain; the pushback crew had a hard time hearing me on the headset and repeatedly asked me to speak up. They came through to me intermittently and then just before push; communications seemed normal. As we were pushing back parallel to the gate; ramp requested we push deeper to give another aircraft room to push. I passed along this info to the pushback crew and received no response. The aircraft was stopped in the normal push position (not the newly requested position) and I could tell that the push crew was trying to communicate with me but nothing was coming through. Again; I said (loudly) to push us further back. I received no verbal acknowledgment; but we did eventually push further back. After we stopped I received no communication to set brakes. I could see confusion on the ramp and someone gave me the 'stop' sign. I set the brakes; then the tow bar was disconnected and someone ran out to show me the bypass pin as the tug pulled away. In the meantime; we tried to contact Operations to have a new headset brought out to the push crew; but by then we were understanding each other with hand signals. The difficulty was that it was raining and the pushback crew was standing to the side of the cockpit where we have no way to clear the windshield and I could barely see them through the window due to the rain.
B767 Captain reported that a faulty headset resulted in a communication breakdown with the ground crew during pushback.