Medium Transport; Low Wing; 2 Turbojet Eng
Air Traffic Control Developmental
Workload; Troubleshooting; Training / Qualification; Situational Awareness; Distraction; Confusion; Communication Breakdown
Conflict Airborne Conflict; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance
Air Traffic Control Separated Traffic
Human Factors; Procedure
As the D-Side on Sector 16 I was called by Flight Service and asked for a Clearance for Aircraft X. FSS told me he would be ready in 5 minutes; but Aircraft Y was inbound to COD and appeared to be about 7-9 minutes out descending from FL230. I asked the R-side if I should wait; and he told me to give the departure clearance with a void time. I gave Aircraft X a clearance as filed to 160 with a clearance void time. [One minute after the [void time] Aircraft X had not yet departed so I called CPR FSS to ask the status of Aircraft X. After a slight delay and speaking with another FSS agent; FSS told me that Aircraft X indicated that he would make his void time. I told the R-side; and waited for him to turn Aircraft Y out of the COD obstacle departure airspace. He did not give Aircraft Y a vector; and just as this was happening; complexity increased at JAC with two arrivals; a departure; a VFR sky diving operation; and possibly another VFR flight following target. We saw a radar return right off of the airport at 06X FT. (6;000 and something; I do not recall). The next radar return indicated that it was Aircraft X and he was northeast bound which would put him in confliction with Aircraft Y. I told the R-Side that I didn't think it was going to work; and he replied something about it being a pilot deviation and that Aircraft X should have departed sooner. As it became clear there might be a loss of separation the R-Side vectored Aircraft Y to the north and put a halo on the target. As Aircraft X was climbing through 082; the target entered the halo and a loss of separation was realized. There was one (2 at most) radar return with Aircraft X inside the halo and the aircraft did not get closer than 4 miles from each other. I think that relying on radar and a clearance void time for separation at COD was a mistake; and I wish I would have insisted that the R-Side stop the arriving aircraft at FL170 or vector the arriving aircraft away from the airspace surrounding COD and the obstacle departure procedure. This would have caused very little delay for Aircraft Y and insured separation.I think it should be more common practice to use non-radar separation rules and to not rely on radar; especially in Sector 16. The same thing goes with a commonly used practice of using 'Mode C' separation where a controller will clear an aircraft through another aircraft's altitude when the lower aircraft is more than 4;000 below thinking that he'll never climb that fast.
ZLC Developmental describes a situation where and aircraft is given a void time to depart the airport and departs after the void time. This causes an operational error with an arrival that is vectored too late to avoid the error.