Narrative:

We were descending into den. The controller never responded to our initial check in. After waiting a minute or so; and a few more attempts; I pressed the identify button to get the controller's attention an alternate way. The approach controller put us on a heading vector of approximately a base turn and cleared us to 13;000. The controller was very busy dealing with a flight not reporting the runway in sight and seemed annoyed the aircraft didn't report the field. The controller was also dealing with another; worried the aircraft would go through the localizer for the runway. The approach plate said we should have been lower; say 9;000 or so; and I could see the controller was going to leave us high on the approach. The controller turned us to a heading of north because he/she flew us through the localizer and this would have had us intercept the localizer from the west. Then he/she got distracted; again with other traffic. The controller called us to descend to 10;000. We began our descent and were through 12;500 when we were called and told to cancel our descent. The controller never told us what altitude to maintain; I made repeated attempts to clarify our clearance. The controller was completely in the weeds. We returned to 13;000. A jump-seater heard it all over the cockpit speaker and the three of us agreed that this was a controller deviation.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: DEN Air Carrier arrival described a confused ATC descent clearance that was apparently issued to the wrong aircraft.

Narrative: We were descending into DEN. The Controller never responded to our initial check in. After waiting a minute or so; and a few more attempts; I pressed the IDENT button to get the Controller's attention an alternate way. The Approach Controller put us on a heading vector of approximately a base turn and cleared us to 13;000. The Controller was very busy dealing with a flight not reporting the runway in sight and seemed annoyed the aircraft didn't report the field. The Controller was also dealing with another; worried the aircraft would go through the localizer for the runway. The approach plate said we should have been lower; say 9;000 or so; and I could see the Controller was going to leave us high on the approach. The Controller turned us to a heading of north because he/she flew us through the localizer and this would have had us intercept the localizer from the West. Then he/she got distracted; again with other traffic. The Controller called us to descend to 10;000. We began our descent and were through 12;500 when we were called and told to cancel our descent. The Controller never told us what altitude to maintain; I made repeated attempts to clarify our clearance. The Controller was completely in the weeds. We returned to 13;000. A jump-seater heard it all over the cockpit speaker and the three of us agreed that this was a controller deviation.

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.