A breakdown in ATC communications resulted when either ATC or the flight crew of a crj-900 failed to...

Narrative:

We called the airport in sight; but did not receive a response from ATC. We were cleared to 5;000 ft previously and were currently at that altitude about 10 miles from the field. I realized that ATC did not hand us off to the next frequency so we switched to the appropriate frequency; contacted ATC and received a visual approach clearance. ATC had apparently been trying to contact us. There were no apparent conflicts with other traffic; etc.it was late at night. Normally I would not be overly concerned; however; ATC was quite irritated that we were not on the appropriate frequency. I am reasonably confident that it was an oversight by ATC and not us; but it could have been our mistake. As a side note; unscientifically speaking; I would say that 90% of the mistakes that I make personally are on continuous duty overnights.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A breakdown in ATC communications resulted when either ATC or the flight crew of a CRJ-900 failed to provide and/or respond to a frequency change to Approach Control.

Narrative: We called the airport in sight; but did not receive a response from ATC. We were cleared to 5;000 FT previously and were currently at that altitude about 10 miles from the field. I realized that ATC did not hand us off to the next frequency so we switched to the appropriate frequency; contacted ATC and received a visual approach clearance. ATC had apparently been trying to contact us. There were no apparent conflicts with other traffic; etc.It was late at night. Normally I would not be overly concerned; however; ATC was quite irritated that we were not on the appropriate frequency. I am reasonably confident that it was an oversight by ATC and not us; but it could have been our mistake. As a side note; unscientifically speaking; I would say that 90% of the mistakes that I make personally are on continuous duty overnights.

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	946164
Time
Date	201104
Local Time Of Day	1801-2400
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.Airport
State Reference	US
Environment
Light	Night
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Regional Jet 900 (CRJ900)
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Initial Approach
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	Pilot Flying Captain
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 1 Flight Crew Total 15250 Flight Crew Type 800
Events
Anomaly	Deviation - Procedural Clearance

A breakdown in ATC communications resulted when either ATC or the flight crew of a crj-900 failed to provide and/or respond to a frequency change to approach control.