Air carrier pilot reported a safety concern where station personnel did not communicate and remain within communication with pilots when performing a 'disinsection' procedure of the aircraft.

Date: 2025-02 · Aircraft: Commercial Fixed Wing · Phase: ground

Anomalies: aircraft-equipment-problem-critical|deviation-discrepancy-procedural-published-material-policy|flight-deck-cabin-aircraft-event-smoke-fire-fumes-odor|ground-event-encounter-other-unknown

Synopsis

Air carrier pilot reported a safety concern where station personnel did not communicate and remain within communication with pilots when performing a 'disinsection' procedure of the aircraft.

Narrative

Repeated station non-compliance with Company disinsection procedures.On a previous flight ZZZ-MROC a year ago; disinsection procedures were not followed upon arrival; in that ground personnel did not contact the flight crew prior to or during disinsection. On that day; a cargo fire warning resulted during disinsection.Yesterday; Day 0; upon arrival the flight crew was again not contacted by ground personnel prior to disinsection. Upon discussion with operations personnel; I was shown on an app that an entry had been made that someone had attempted to contact the flight crew with no response. Based on my previous experience; I was expecting contact from ground personnel; which never came.Cause: Disinsection procedures do not require ground personnel to merely attempt to contact the flight crew; but rather to communicate via headset from start of disinsection until the end of disinsection. I can tell you from many years of flying into MROC that this often does not happen. Prior to my experience from a year ago; I had assumed that communication did not always occur because disinsection was not always carried out. Discussion with the station manager on that day revealed to me that disinsection occurs upon every arrival into MROC.I have only once encountered a fire warning during disinsection; whether with or without proper communication from ground personnel. I consider the possibility of an actual cargo fire that only occurs upon gate arrival to be remote. Much more worrisome to me is the possibility of discharging halon into a cargo compartment while someone is in it.Without communication with ground personnel; my decision when confronted with a cargo fire warning in this scenario is whether to blindly follow procedures and discharge a fire bottle into the compartment; with the associated risk or injuring or killing someone; or to delay doing so until clarification of the problem can be achieved. Both options are less than optimum and compromise safety.

Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.