Originally Posted by JamesNoBrakes

This could have been handled better by the crew, as indicated above. That is not an excuse for ATC of course. There's several options, like asking them to repeat when clear and then if the controller "yells at you", they are going to be even more in the wrong. There's the quick "unable", only acknowledging enough to exit, and then contact, etc.

Controllers are human, which means there are good ones, bad ones, ones that need retraining, and so on. No system ever stays 100% perfect and "maintenance" is needed from time to time to keep it safe.

When this happens to you, afterwards call the center watch desk and ask to have QC review your event. Center QC (AOV) is an independent branch of the FAA and they are like Flight Standards are to pilots, in relation to controllers (ATO). I communicate regularly with AOV as an inspector, but these people exist for exactly these situations, to have pilots call in and review situations.

You do this for many reasons, a clearance didn't make sense (climb and maintain 20,000, expect 18,000 in 10 minutes), you aren't sure what happened was right, you want to give feedback, etc. More pilots should be using this function and there's nothing bad about doing so. ATO has their own ASAP program and AOV wants to address performance issues and sort out stuff like this, not punish people, as that is a last resort. If no one ever calls though, a lot of stuff won't ever make it into the system and many of these same controllers will thank the pilot afterwards for clarifying clearances, not moving and asking for progressive, asking if they are cleared to land when they already are-even though the controller wasn't very "nice" when responding on the radio earlier.

Not only do these people (ATO) work for you, the QC department also does and they are the ones that should be reviewing such an event and communicating with the pilot (after the pilot has called). I recall one situation not too long ago where a pilot landed on a runway w/o clearance while under snow removal. While there was a PD element to it, the controller had a single-point-of-failure by having the pilot report a certain point on the approach and was going to use that to tell the equipment to vacate, except there was an actual issue with aircraft's com system and that report never made it, but ATO's rules for this were to not have a single point of failure. Center didn't inform the crew about the snow removal with the approach clearance, as is standard practice, because the city/state procedures for putting in the NOTAM didn't exist at this airport, so a big breakdown on several levels...that wasn't just the crew's fault.

AOV will "dig in" and try to figure out the situation and what should have happened. No one should be expecting unreasonable things from the flight crew, but this is the same as any normalized deviation. The first person that gets away with it is probably the most guilty, but then everyone follows, does it, and it becomes "culture". All of a sudden, you've been "doing it" for "20 years" or whatever and then something bad happens and you or the last person is left holding the ball. In the wrong...but the culpability gets less and less because everyone "got away with it" for so long and it wasn't corrected. If no one calls out ATO/ATC on it, it keeps going...