B737 Undifferentiated or Other Model
Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Communication Breakdown; Situational Awareness
ATC Issue All Types
General None Reported / Taken
Procedure; Human Factors; ATC Equipment / Nav Facility / Buildings
As BWI TMC with the DC Metro hot line active; I received a call via the 123 line from ZDC requesting to change a route on Air Carrier X to PHX so I considered that the first print out of Air Carrier X would be that amendment. I scanned the 3 positions in the Tower for a flight plan with that call sign and didn't see it. I may or not have notified Clearance Delivery of the impending change because of the numerous SWAPS taking place and multiple restrictions due to weather. I had been swapping most of the flights for West Coast airports over BUFFR as the first fix and I assume that is what was sent via PDC to Air Carrier X which required an APREQ with PCT for departure sequence. After Air Carrier X got airborne; PCT TMU called and asked what flight plan had been issued to Air Carrier X. At this point I located the new flight plan sitting in Clearance Deliveries left bay with the full route sitting on top of it; which meant that it wasn't issued but the active Flight Plan in the system. So due to the demands of SWAPS; multiple APREQ's; and departure demand he got through and departed on the wrong flight plan. Other factors are all arrivals landing on our main jet departure Runway 28 for winds; large departure push of the morning; multiple flight plan revisions; and changes to those revisions due to changes in the weather along the route and traffic volume on reroutes. Automation shouldn't allow this flight to depart. ARMT bar codes should change with flight plan amendments so an error warning is issued when and if a flight plan makes it all the way to take off clearance. At that point the Tower has time to verify that the flight plan is correct and if not change it before the Departure Controller sees the aircraft taking the wrong transition off the SID.
It was explained to me that Air Carrier X; BWI to PHX; required a SWAP routing; but was issued the original clearance and departed without a route amendment. Apparently the amendment was entered into the system some point after the PDC was sent. This appears to be a transparent problem. The amendment was made; but not seen? I am not sure at this point. What way was there to know of the amendment. Did PCT have a strip with an amendment number on it? If so they should have followed up with an inquiry to the tower whether the amendment was issued if the amendment came with in five minutes of departure; becoming an active flight plan and no notification from Tower was received. We are required to notify the next facility if we make a change within a certain amount of minutes prior to the proposed departure time. If someone has made a change to a pending departure where it may only be a moment or less before the flight plan becomes active; the individual that made the change would most certainly ensure the amend is in fact issued. The timing of land line coordination about the flight amendment may have overlap and something was missed.
BWI Controller described a wrong flight plan issuance event when an amended clearance was not noted and traffic departed with the wrong routing.