1. A processor-implemented method for processing a composite digital radio broadcast signal to recover audio transport elements, comprising: receiving a composite digital radio broadcast signal comprising one or more protocol data units (PDUs) transported together in a single transfer frame; detecting a header decoding failure in a first header portion of a first PDU; and identifying valid and invalid audio packet location fields in the first header portion of the first PDU to locate one or more audio packets in the first PDU based on an expected placement of each audio packet location field in the first header portion of the first PDU and one or more structural statistics for the first PDU.