Narrative:

Toronto mitchell (czyz) sector had an aircraft approaching the boundary. When I realized that toronto had not called with a handoff and the aircraft was about to enter my airspace I initiated a call to them using the czyz 2 shout line #162. When I hit the button it turned blue not green which is the normal color. I tried to call the sector but when I keyed up; instead of my call going out over the line; it went out over my frequencies in my sector. I hung up the line to try again and after I hung up and hit the 'rls' button; the line would remain blue for about 3 more seconds and as if I was still on the line. During these 3 second the vscs acted as if it was frozen and wouldn't let me do anything. I yelled at my supervisor that something was wrong and tried to call again. I repeated this process over about 5 times with no luck in getting a hold of czyz. At this time I could see aircraft X had entered my airspace and it appeared as if czyz was initiating a turn to the aircraft to turn the aircraft out of my airspace. I then heard the czyz dial 3 line calling and assumed it was czyz calling wondering what was going on. I picked up the line and it was the appropriate sector trying to handoff the aircraft to me. They stated that they had called 7 times and were spinning the aircraft and wanted to know why I wasn't picking up the line. I stated that there were equipment issues; I had tried calling them and that aircraft X was radar contact and could proceed on course. The aircraft did not violate any other airspace and separation was not lost with any other aircraft.I have no idea. Equipment failure.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: ZMP Controller reports of land line equipment failure; causing an adjacent sector to spin aircraft until communications were established.

Narrative: Toronto Mitchell (CZYZ) sector had an aircraft approaching the boundary. When I realized that Toronto had not called with a handoff and the aircraft was about to enter my airspace I initiated a call to them using the CZYZ 2 shout line #162. When I hit the button it turned blue not green which is the normal color. I tried to call the sector but when I keyed up; instead of my call going out over the line; it went out over my frequencies in my sector. I hung up the line to try again and after I hung up and hit the 'RLS' button; the line would remain blue for about 3 more seconds and as if I was still on the line. During these 3 second the VSCS acted as if it was frozen and wouldn't let me do anything. I yelled at my Supervisor that something was wrong and tried to call again. I repeated this process over about 5 times with no luck in getting a hold of CZYZ. At this time I could see Aircraft X had entered my airspace and it appeared as if CZYZ was initiating a turn to the aircraft to turn the aircraft out of my airspace. I then heard the CZYZ dial 3 line calling and assumed it was CZYZ calling wondering what was going on. I picked up the line and it was the appropriate sector trying to handoff the aircraft to me. They stated that they had called 7 times and were spinning the aircraft and wanted to know why I wasn't picking up the line. I stated that there were equipment issues; I had tried calling them and that Aircraft X was radar contact and could proceed on course. The aircraft did not violate any other airspace and separation was not lost with any other aircraft.I have no idea. Equipment failure.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.