A flight crew declared an emergency and returned to land after an air leak in the captain's side win...

Attributes
ACN	823344
Time
Date	200902
Local Time Of Day	0601-1200
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.Airport
State Reference	US
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Night
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	B737-800
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Climb
Route In Use	Vectors
Flight Plan	IFR
Component
Aircraft Component	Cockpit Window
Person 1
Function	Captain Pilot Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP) Flight Crew Multiengine Flight Crew Flight Engineer
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 50 Flight Crew Total 13600 Flight Crew Type 1200
Events
Anomaly	Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe

Narrative:

What happened: during climbout; an air leak from around the captain's side window created a whistle so loud that communications with ATC became impossible through our boom or handheld mikes. Communication between pilots inside the cockpit also became very difficult. What we did: after realizing the whistle was getting louder as we pressurized; we attempted to ask ATC to level off at 11;000 ft. With the inability to communicate through the exposed mikes available; I transferred control of the aircraft to the first officer and donned the oxygen mask to use the sealed mike which would reduce the whistle noise over the radio. After re-establishing communications with ATC I declared an emergency while the first officer leveled the plane at 11;000 ft. ATC then gave us a lower altitude and vectors for landing at ZZZ. After descending through 6;000 ft the whistling stopped and we continued the approach to ZZZ with no further problems. Accomplished an overweight at ZZZ.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A flight crew declared an emergency and returned to land after an air leak in the Captain's side window created a squeal so loud that communications were impossible.

Narrative: What happened: During climbout; an air leak from around the Captain's side window created a whistle so loud that communications with ATC became impossible through our boom or handheld mikes. Communication between pilots inside the cockpit also became very difficult. What we did: After realizing the whistle was getting louder as we pressurized; we attempted to ask ATC to level off at 11;000 FT. With the inability to communicate through the exposed mikes available; I transferred control of the aircraft to the First Officer and donned the oxygen mask to use the sealed mike which would reduce the whistle noise over the radio. After re-establishing communications with ATC I declared an emergency while the First Officer leveled the plane at 11;000 FT. ATC then gave us a lower altitude and vectors for landing at ZZZ. After descending through 6;000 FT the whistling stopped and we continued the approach to ZZZ with no further problems. Accomplished an overweight at ZZZ.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 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.

A flight crew declared an emergency and returned to land after an air leak in the captain's side window created a squeal so loud that communications were impossible.