Light Transport; Low Wing; 2 Turbojet Eng
Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Air Traffic Control Time Certified In Pos 1 (yrs) 1
Confusion; Distraction; Workload
ATC Issue All Types; Conflict Airborne Conflict; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Airspace Structure; ATC Equipment / Nav Facility / Buildings; Human Factors; Procedure
ZAU ATC-0.  No automation; all manual hand offs.  Aircraft X was manual handed off from LAN approach.  I am not sure who took the flight plan information; nor who actually declared him as 'radar contact' due to the excessive amount of people in the radar room all plugged in and all coordinating (normally staffed by 2).  He checked on at 8;000 and we were running visual approaches to 26L.  During this time we were in the process of a 6 plus aircraft sequence; while working numerous overflights.  I told Aircraft X to expect a visual approach; and to proceed direct KNOBS OTM; and was about to descend him but caught myself mid sentence and noticed an aircraft that was talking to our North Approach controller.  It was Aircraft Y at 7;500 approximately 2-3 miles in front of Aircraft X.  I had Aircraft X maintain 8;000; and honestly assumed that Aircraft Y was VFR due to his 7;500 indicated altitude.  Normally there would have been a 'V' a the end of his data block to indicate he was VFR; but due to the ZAU outage; not all aircraft with the 'V' were actually VFR and vice-versa.  The biggest contributing factor was the ZAU outage.  This lead to an increased traffic and complexity.  Manual hand offs which are required due to the outage of ZAU also contributed since I had no information on Aircraft X until he was at our boundary with LAN approach.  I never actually took the hand off on Aircraft X; some one took the hand off for me (a system put in place since ZAU outage where some one coordinates everything for the controller actually working the position).  Since the ZAU ATC-0 is in the process of being fixed; I would say the best thing that could be done is have a back-up system so that facilities surrounding each other can still transfer information automated between each other even without ZAU.
GRR Approach Controller describes a conflict of two aircraft and is concerned about who took the hand off on one of the aircraft.