Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Air Traffic Control Time Certified In Pos 1 (yrs) 4
Workload; Confusion; Distraction; Situational Awareness; Training / Qualification; Troubleshooting; Communication Breakdown
ATC Issue All Types; Conflict Airborne Conflict; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Human Factors; Procedure; ATC Equipment / Nav Facility / Buildings
During an busy arrival rush weather caused a sudden shift from Visual Approaches to Triple Simultaneous ILS approaches.  We do this a lot at Denver and should be no problem.  The new STARS RADAR and lack of training caused several losses of legal separation and safety issues.  Several controllers were rapidly shuffled from on position to another to open the MO positions.  Position relief briefing were instructed to be short and the 2 minute overlap was waived.  The MO positions were not 'opened' and the controllers were unable to look at and data blocks and therefore could not open.  The controllers and the FLM did not know how to fix the situation due to lack of training and understanding.  Luckily a 'SME' happened to be in the room and even they struggled to get the position working.  About half a dozen aircraft illegally flew an unmonitored; side-by-side; ILS approach.  The TM-in-training (and soon to be FLM) thought that nothing was wrong with the operation.The training for STARS has caused hundreds of problems that have been logged and many more that have not.  Everything from not being able to amend and aircraft's type to the RADAR scope turning off entirely are causing safety problems that do not seem to be taken seriously.  It seems like 'they'll figure it out' was a huge part of unveiling STARS.  This is dangerous and today proved that.  Better training and equipment fixes are needed.
D01 Controller reports of problems associated with STARS equipment not working correctly and having aircraft on final with less than standard separation.