Since the Northwest overflight of MSP a couple of years ago, the FAA is hot and heavy on NORDO's, i.e. lost comms.  They make us hunt down aircraft like crazy.  Since Jan, 2012, the FAA has implemented a new quality control system and before a nordo was handled in each atc facility.  Now we just report the aircraft nordo and a report is filed as to how long they were out of comms.  Those reports for straight to the regional quality assurance office and they determine whether or not to file a pilot deviation.  The new standard is 20 minutes.  If it is longer than 20 minutes, the regional QA sends the pilot deviation report to FSDO.  Not much we can do about it anymore, other than tell everyone, make sure your talking to atc every 20 minutes.

 

Luke Alcorn
NATCA ZJX Safety Rep