Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Air Traffic Control Time Certified In Pos 1 (yrs) 4.8
Communication Breakdown; Distraction; Situational Awareness; Confusion; Workload; Troubleshooting
Conflict Airborne Conflict; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance
Air Traffic Control Provided Assistance
Airspace Structure; Human Factors; Procedure
Our support personnel coordinated for Parachute operation into Salt Lake Class Bravo airspace for the State Fair at specific times.  These times coincided with our evening cargo banks; one of our busiest VFR traffic times.  The jump was also scheduled to occur almost directly over the main transition for all VFR aircraft in and out of SLC.  The controllers requested and had the tower supervisor coordinate to hold out all VFR traffic for the tower airspace until the jumpers were down.  We also requested to be given a 5 minute warning and a 1 minute warning so that we could sterilize our airspace from our end as well.  We were given the 5 minute warning but never given the 1 minute and never asked for permission to allow the jumpers to jump.  We still have Aircraft Y in a downwind directly under the jump aircraft when we were told jumpers away.  We were never informed of how many jumpers there would be and how we could tell which one was the last one so we could verify that they were out of the way.  As we are watching parachutes still in the air and fairly high in the sky; TRACON begins bringing aircraft into the airspace; pointed directly at the parachutes.  To make it worse; we were not transferred communication to the Aircraft Y pilots until there were about 3 miles into our airspace already.  When asked to make the Aircraft Y's turn around and/or spin; the TRACON ignored us and instead asked the jump aircraft if the jumpers were down; to which he responded affirmative; even though we were watching the parachutes still descending with our binoculars.  When we finally did get communication with the Aircraft Y pilots we had to take them off their normal flight path to avoid the area the parachutes were in.  When the Aircraft Y's finally passed the parachutes; there were well above the parachutes; but until then we had no way of knowing the altitude of the parachutes.  For parachute operations in that close to the airport; the tower controllers need to be in absolute control of who comes in to the airspace and when; it should not be dictated to us by the TRACON.
SLC Tower Controller describes a situation involving parachutists and IFR aircraft in close proximity. Coordination between Tower and TRACON was not complete.