Narrative:

Midflight just before the arrival briefing my captain headset started to come in and out and I started to hear ATC and the first officer (first officer) intermittently. I knew right then and there; premonition by experience I guess; that this was not going to end well and that I should immediately start to look for threats. But all was going smoothly until the intercept of the localizer when I asked the first officer if he was going to intercept the localizer and he even shallow the intercept angle; but the runways are so close apart that; that we did not notice that we were more lined up with runway xxl then runway xxr as we got closer tower asked us if we were on runway xxr and at that moment we realized that captain was on the runway xxr and first officer was on the runway xxl frequency. We immediately decided as a crew to look outside and ignore what the instruments were telling us. At that moment we thought it was a navigation problem and not a pilot error problem. We ended up landing on the right runway and no further error were noticed. Cause of the event was unknown headset/communication issues and close adjacent runways; as well as improperly selected and cross checks frequencies. Having a spare company headset with microphone could have averted this event; as I did not hear the frequency that the first officer had selected on his side. I was busy trying to make out what he was saying and troubleshoot the headset and headset connection. We take for granted how a quiet and well sounded the cockpit is in normal events.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: CRJ 700 Captain reported that communications issues led to setting up for the wrong runway.

Narrative: Midflight just before the arrival briefing my Captain headset started to come in and out and I started to hear ATC and the FO (First Officer) intermittently. I knew right then and there; premonition by experience I guess; that this was not going to end well and that I should immediately start to look for threats. But all was going smoothly until the intercept of the localizer when I asked the FO if he was going to intercept the localizer and he even shallow the intercept angle; but the runways are so close apart that; that we did not notice that we were more lined up with Runway XXL then Runway XXR as we got closer Tower asked us if we were on Runway XXR and at that moment we realized that Captain was on the Runway XXR and FO was on the Runway XXL frequency. We immediately decided as a crew to look outside and ignore what the instruments were telling us. At that moment we thought it was a navigation problem and not a pilot error problem. We ended up landing on the right runway and no further error were noticed. Cause of the event was unknown headset/communication issues and close adjacent runways; as well as improperly selected and cross checks frequencies. Having a spare company headset with microphone could have averted this event; as I did not hear the frequency that the FO had selected on his side. I was busy trying to make out what he was saying and troubleshoot the headset and headset connection. We take for granted how a quiet and well sounded the cockpit is in normal events.

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.