Pilot Deviation Notice
I'm a flight instructor in the Memphis, TN area. We do most of our flight training in or just below the Memphis Class B airspace. Today, I was flying with a student who was working on his Commercial Multi-engine conversion (currently holds a Kenyan license). While in the air, we were diligently monitoring the radio frequencies. The student was actively manning the radios and I was monitoring the radios, as well. At one point during the flight, we hear ATC angrily say, "Mem Appch, Duchess XXX..." Confused as to why he's frustrated (we had been listening and hadn't received any prior calls) I responded, "Duchess XXX, go ahead". The controller then says something along the lines of, "Duchess XXX, turn eastbound immediately, traffic less than 1/2 mile ...... WE NEED YOU TO LISTEN, WE'VE ALREADY CALLED YOU THREE TIMES." We immediately cranked it over into a right turn towards the East and after the situation was over my student and I looked at each other--he was just as dumbfounded as I was. Certainly, I miss radio calls from time-to-time, especially in a training environment, but I've always made a conscious effort to listen to ALL radio chatter, not just for my callsign, in order to gain situational awareness; I've NEVER been one of the pilots chastised by ATC for not listening. About 30 seconds after the incident, ATC calls and asks us why we didn't respond to their calls. I politely told him that I'm flying with another experienced commercial pilot, both of us were listening, and we did not hear a single call for us. About 15 seconds later, he informs us of a possible pilot deviation.
I called the number on the ground and spoke to the supervisor of the Memphis tracon. He told me that due to the automatic incident reporting, they already sent in the paperwork. I gave him my name, address, and phone number. He was fairly reasonable about the whole thing and was willing to hear our side of the story (I had the student on speaker phone with me). He mentioned that he had put "possible radio issues" as a probable cause on the paperwork.
Given the fact that I've never had a track record of not listening to approach, and that I had another experienced pilot with me to vouch my story, I find it VERY difficult to believe that we simply "overheard" 3 radio calls. I'm hoping an investigation will find issues on part of the controller or with equipment failure. Nonetheless, I see this as an humbling opportunity for further improvement.
To further add credibility to our case (as I'm sure many of you are assuming we simply weren't listening), we heard the ATC call to the traffic we came in proximity with. We heard the other plane respond and say that he had us on TCAS. It's surprising we heard this and not THREE calls with our tail number. We also heard another pilot get chewed out 5 minutes prior for "not listening". What was interesting is that we never heard ATC call this particular plane before chewing him out (usually I hear the unanswered calls).
My question is: what is going to happen to me? What is the next step in the process? (I filled out a NASA report immediately after calling tracon). Will this go on my record? Will I ever have an opportunity to view the tapes? (liveatc feed for memphis is down). Will this make it difficult for me to go to the airlines?