A320 first officer reports lost communications with abq center and deviates without clearance to avo...

Narrative:

While climbing above FL180 the departure; the pilot not flying and I noticed thunderclouds nearby. We saw cloud visually; as well as on radar; painting some red in the cloud. The pilot not flying and I discussed and agreed to deviate left (north) of course; for weather avoidance. Three or four times the pilot not flying tried to contact abq center for permission to deviate; with no reply from abq. Meanwhile; the frequency was a bit busy with other aircraft checking in; and abq center issuing weather advisories. Faced with the choice of penetrating a cloud returning red echoes; and deviating without clearance from ATC; we opted to choose what we felt was the safest option and deviated left for a short time. We assumed the pilot not flying's radio was dead; so the pilot flying tried to contact ATC with no answer. [We] finally got a hand off from ATC to new frequency which the pilot flying answered. Upon checking in with new ATC frequency we advised ATC of our deviation; and that we were returning on course. At about this time; we realized the pilot not flying's microphone jack had come disconnected; and that's why ATC could not hear us.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A320 First Officer reports lost communications with ABQ Center and deviates without clearance to avoid weather. It is later discovered that the Captain's microphone jack had come unplugged causing the outage.

Narrative: While climbing above FL180 the departure; the pilot not flying and I noticed thunderclouds nearby. We saw cloud visually; as well as on radar; painting some red in the cloud. The pilot not flying and I discussed and agreed to deviate left (north) of course; for weather avoidance. Three or four times the pilot not flying tried to contact ABQ Center for permission to deviate; with no reply from ABQ. Meanwhile; the frequency was a bit busy with other aircraft checking in; and ABQ Center issuing weather advisories. Faced with the choice of penetrating a cloud returning red echoes; and deviating without clearance from ATC; we opted to choose what we felt was the safest option and deviated left for a short time. We assumed the pilot not flying's radio was dead; so the pilot flying tried to contact ATC with no answer. [We] finally got a hand off from ATC to new frequency which the pilot flying answered. Upon checking in with new ATC frequency we advised ATC of our deviation; and that we were returning on course. At about this time; we realized the pilot not flying's microphone jack had come disconnected; and that's why ATC could not hear us.

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.

Attributes
ACN	889105
Time
Date	201005
Local Time Of Day	1801-2400
Place
Locale Reference	ZAB.ARTCC
State Reference	NM
Environment
Light	Dusk
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	A320
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Climb
Route In Use	SID MAXXO 1
Flight Plan	IFR
Component
Aircraft Component	Air/Ground Communication
Person 1
Function	First Officer Pilot Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Events
Anomaly	Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe Deviation - Procedural Clearance Deviation - Track / Heading All Types Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence

A320 first officer reports lost communications with abq center and deviates without clearance to avoid weather. It is later discovered that the captain's microphone jack had come unplugged causing the outage.