Small Aircraft; Low Wing; 1 Eng; Fixed Gear
Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Air Traffic Control Time Certified In Pos 1 (yrs) 27
Communication Breakdown; Situational Awareness; Distraction; Confusion
ATC Issue All Types; Conflict NMAC; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural FAR; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Flight Crew Requested ATC Assistance / Clarification
Aircraft; Human Factors; Procedure; Weather
I was aware there was parachute jumping and it was announced by my radar controller. I was busy getting strips and on the landline with FPR and VRB towers with coordination. R4 reminded us of the parachute activity and my radar controller turned the aircraft to the west of the airfield. It was hard to tell from the D-side how far away he was from the airport but it seemed pretty close; maybe a mile. He then went up a few hundred feet and when R3 assigned him 4;000 again he reported something like 'You should tell that parachute company that they are illegally jumping with no proper cloud clearance. We just popped out of a cloud and we were 200 feet from a collision with one of them.'After the event was over; the R3 controller and I discussed it would be a good idea to have a red circle drawn around the airport area and keeping the jump plane on the scope. He said he had dropped it due to clutter. Also; pilots should pay attention to the reminders of the jump so they can jog our memories if we forget or get too busy to focus on that particular duty.
ZMA Controller reported of a situation where an aircraft was climbing to assigned altitude and went through some clouds. As the aircraft exited the pilot reported that a skydiving aircraft was illegally jumping due to close proximity to the clouds.