Hercules (C-130)/L100/382
Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Workload; Communication Breakdown; Confusion
ATC Issue All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
General None Reported / Taken
Weather; ATC Equipment / Nav Facility / Buildings; Airspace Structure; Procedure
I was working Sector 90 and 47 combined. I had a line of weather from just north of FHU (by about ten miles) going north about 80 miles; a 15 mile wide gap; and then weather up well out of my airspace. Most of my overflights and arrivals were going south through the gap between the weather and the FHU restricted areas (R2303A; B; C; active to FL300). I only had about 15 miles to play with to get everyone through the gap. I had previously worked two TUS arrivals through the gap (TUS was on Runway 29); where they had done significant deviating (including through stuff I couldn't see on RADAR) where I had to come up with fixes to send them to since they couldn't stay on the arrival (ZONNA1). I had a C130 going to DMA; told them about the weather and offered a fix on the ILS; they wanted the TACAN to Runway 30; so I gave them direct to the IF. A B737 was northeast of SSO; I told them about the weather; offered a suggested routing south around the weather to go to the IF for the ILS Runway 30 at DMA; which they took. I had a couple of VFRs who were trying to negotiate their way through the weather; one south of the line; and one trying to get right through the middle of the extreme precipitation; that took a lot of my time in trying to give them adequate weather information. I gave the C130 a descent to 130 (LOA into U90s airspace) and gave the B737 a descent to 140 (stair stepping above the C130; also LOA altitude). U90 gave me a hand off on a VFR Learjet going to FHU at 15;500. We have no automation to FHU; so I couldn't start a manual hand off; but U90s airspace borders the FHU GCA airspace; so they called me and said they were going to do a manual hand off straight to FHU. In the middle of all of this the TUS transmitter sites (47 and 90 frequencies; both VHF and UHF) got significant static for about three seconds; loud enough that I had to temporarily remove my ear piece. I saw the Learjet going southeast bound at 13;500 (not sure when they descended); head on with the C130; about nine miles apart. FHU called me and told me that the Learjet was going to be operating in that area; I told them I needed to work them if they were going to do that. I told them about the C130 at 130 so they could call traffic before they shipped him. I stopped the B737 at 15;000 instead of going to 14;000 to give them some space and avoid an RA. I called traffic to the C130. At the same time; a guy from Maintenance came down and said that the TUS transmitter sites had all gone out; and that they were trying to fix it. From the time the static occurred to when they notified me; it was probably close to ten minutes. My two other transmitters in the sector don't work in that area at the lower altitudes; although I tried to call traffic to the C130 to tell them about the traffic with the hope they could still hear me. I went up on 243.0 to try to call traffic; but that transmitter is even farther away than my regular ones. FHU must have advised the Learjet to descend; because they went underneath the C130 by a couple of thousand feet. The Learjet climbed back up well on the other side of the C130 and FHU called me to ask for an IFR at 14;000. Since the Learjet was well away from the C130 at this point; I approved the IFR; telling them only at 14;000 that it was approved. I called traffic for the B737 to the Learjet (they were about three miles apart or so); the pilot said they were responding to an RA. The Learjet was at around 138 or so. I saw the B737 go to 15;300; and then down to 14;800; the Learjet never went above 14;000 that I could tell. My guess it that the Learjet had climbed so fast that the B737's TCAS went off. After I got off the sector; I called the FLM over to Sector 47 and told him about the situation. I told the FLM that I didn't think I had ever lost separation between the Learjet and the B737. After thinking about the situation; after the B737 responded to the RA and then went down to 14;800; the Conflict Alert activated so I might have only 800 FT. I think the weather built up and closed off several portions of my airspace. I was having to reroute the PHX arrivals; they were head-on with the departures. To my knowledge; there was no coordination between TMU and the supervisors involved with the weather. I know that we closed the departure gate (running departures out of PHX on a heading) and went on the full departure; although we had to amend the routing down to just north of R2303C for weather. Although I never had anyone go into any of the military airspace; I believe the provisions of CAR40 could tacitly apply to sector complexity as well. Regardless of that interpretation; I think as a system we are bad about reacting to weather situations and trying to mitigate the risk proactively. This weather has been a particularly nasty one for ZAB and the situations we are encountering are getting increasingly more complex and the responses (or lack thereof in many cases) we invariably get back are causing concern. I also believe the coordination for the transmitter outage was extremely untimely. It took quite some time for them to tell me my transmitter was out. I had an MD80 going to PHX who was rerouted for weather over TUS; who apparently was trying to get in touch with me to deviate and clarify an altitude. I was using the TUS transmitter; not knowing it was out; and the pilot was getting irritated about not receiving a response from me. Obviously it didn't dawn on me that the transmitter was out. I think the coordination between AF (Maintenance) and the FLMs could have been more timely and prevented some of my complexity.
a ZAB Controller provided a detailed report on a very busy/complex and unsafe traffic period complicated even further by radio failures and late notifications by Maintenance. The reporter listed lack of proper and timely coordination efforts as contributing to the events outcomes.