Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Air Traffic Control Time Certified In Pos 1 (yrs) 5
Confusion; Troubleshooting; Situational Awareness; Distraction; Communication Breakdown
ATC Issue All Types; Airspace Violation All Types; Conflict Airborne Conflict; Deviation - Altitude Excursion From Assigned Altitude; Deviation - Track / Heading All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Air Traffic Control Issued Advisory / Alert; Air Traffic Control Provided Assistance; Air Traffic Control Separated Traffic; Flight Crew Returned To Clearance
Chart Or Publication; Procedure
I was working the [fix] sector and it was fairly busy with tankers inside the MOA airspace and fighters also; in addition to my normal traffic load. All three tanker flights were getting ready to leave and return to [destination] and they all wanted to depart separately. I pre-planned the departures and searched for the flight plans and had them ready. First aircraft called and I radar identified them and got them going. The second aircraft called for return and I radar identified them and got them going towards the airport. After all these calls I was coordinating with [facility] approach to ensure the aircraft would be able to enter and on what heading/altitudes they'd prefer. After I coordinated Aircraft X going in; I hung up to see Aircraft Y just short of [fix] at 13500 feet descending to 11000 feet and my conflict alert going off with a military aircraft at 13000 feet. I quickly glanced up to see the DME was 4.44 NM which caused us to lose a safe separation minima. I originally was calling on tactical frequency to have the Aircraft X return to the military airspace and issue a traffic call to alert them they were on a collision course. The aircraft never responded because I was calling by the wrong call sign to which I made the error on. After the call on tactical I went on my frequency to alert the Aircraft Y of the Aircraft X spilling out and his position and DME. Aircraft Y reported Aircraft X in sight and did not get any RA's. The military needs to be reminded that we can't be spilling out of the assigned airspace as IFR traffic runs right around the boundary. Additionally; we should've assigned discrete beacon codes to ensure we knew who each aircraft is when multiple are participating. I needed to issue a warning of wake turbulence as the aircraft was a heavy and less than 5 miles from it on the spill out.
Today we had [two] MOA's go active. I was relieving a controller who cleared in a flight of 3 aircraft into the MOA. While inside of the MOA; I noticed that the three all had discrete codes; two of them were both on XXXX beacon code. I caught a glimpse of one of the XXXX codes at 9000 feet when the MOA altitude is 10000 feet to 17900 feet. I immediately go onto tactical frequency and alerted the flight that one of his wingmen was at 9000 feet. I didn't observe any aircraft in the area but because of this he spilled out of the MOA and into [facility] approaches airspace. No other incidents after that.From my training I remember being in the LOA/SOP that the participating aircraft will squawk a discrete code with altitude to monitor the flights. I should've assigned codes that would differentiate the aircraft from each other to alert the leader that the specific aircraft was spilling out. I also feel that more training should be done to ensure the military understands the airspace and that we run aircraft all around that airspace close by to accommodate our [airport] and [airport] traffic flow and any spill outs could lead to a dangerous situation.
Two instances of military aircraft exiting the confines of the MOA without clearance. In one case an aircraft came into conflict with an air carrier. In a separate instance an aircraft exited below the base of the MOA and returned to its base without clearance or contacting the ATC Facility.