Any Unknown or Unlisted Aircraft Manufacturer
Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Workload; Confusion; Other / Unknown
ATC Issue All Types
General None Reported / Taken
ATC Equipment / Nav Facility / Buildings; Procedure
It was the beginning of late night shift; my partner and I still had the final two sectors split apart. The airspace that I was working consisted of four different sectors combined up into one. We refer to it as the 'south south' sector. Everything started off normally with traffic as moderate. Our International Airport seemed to be departing a few more aircraft than usual; but it was nothing crazy. My partner and I were discussing his recent events and not in a hurry to combine the sectors up onto one scope. The supervisor walked down to the area and told us that we were getting ready to go back to 'commercial power'. This is a somewhat routine event for us; especially during thunderstorm season when we work off of generator power relatively often. My partner and I commented how we had not known that we were on backup power. It really doesn't matter for us as controllers anyhow; as long as the equipment works. Shortly after the supervisor walked away our neighboring Center called me to report that they received an unsuccessful transmission message on a flight northbound flying towards my airspace over the VOR. At the same time the RADAR displayed a message indicating that the last twenty seconds of computer entries had not been registered by the HOST system. I had seen that message before and knew that we might have to switch to a backup system called DARC/HOST. I told the other Center that there was something strange going on with the computers but that I had the subject flights information and to keep him coming. I told my partner to use the 'keep' function in his URET for all the flight plans. I was working light/moderate traffic; give or take; ten to fifteen airplanes within my airspace and was using 'positive separation' instead of the 'watch and see' method. We heard a loud popping noise and the scopes all went black; as if someone had unplugged them! Not just my scope either; all of the Center! In addition to our RADAR being gone we lost our VSCS which is used to communicate with airplanes; each other; and other facilities. We were in the dark; without a way to see the airplanes or talk to them. This is known as ATC ZERO and one CBI a year; written by some pencil pusher who isn't even a controller; is not enough to prepare anyone for it. I'll admit it; I was freaked out trying to remember exactly what all my planes were doing; for some were in climb profiles. A controller in the adjacent area began screaming that cell phones were approved for use! My partner looked at me with grave concern in his eyes and said that he had in-bounds for a busy International. I shouted about whether or not the landlines worked and unplugged to run to the supervisor's desk so that I could check the hardwired telephones. The phones worked; but it was hard to dial when your hands are shaking. I first called our neighboring Center and told whoever answered that our Center was ATC Zero and to stay out of our airspace. Then I called Approach and relayed the flight plans for the two in-bounds that my mid-partner had. He was reading them off the 'kept' URET flight plan to me; and I was reading them to Approach. By the time I had called other facilities to advise them we were ATC Zero there was life showing on our scopes. I'm not sure how long it had been since we lost everything; around ten minutes I think. I could see targets in my airspace. They were Mode C Intruders at various altitudes. I tried to think about who I had and saw that an ATR that I had been working had entered Approach airspace without a hand off. I saw someone at FL240 east of a Class D airport and a target at FL340 just entering my airspace from the 'top half' headed southbound. One of the supervisors ran down to the area and shouted to us that they have V-Tabs up and working! We plugged in on the D-Sides and keyed up our frequencies. Holy mayhem was breaking out on 121.5! As the frequencies started to come back up the air/ground speakers on all the D-Sides were blowing our eardrums out. My partner and I were running around trying to get those turned down so that we could hear enough to start identifying aircraft. There were multiple airplanes requesting lower because they were approaching their destinations. Well; we had no idea where they were exactly so we had to break out the old 'say position and altitude' trick. To make matters worse some Mode C Intruders were showing their codes and other targets were just correlated beacons?! My partner and I were starting to get the frequencies under control. We were pulling planes off of GUARD and putting them back on us. Many airplanes; my ATR; would key up and need lower. This would clue us in to where they were at. Mostly they had flown out of our airspace without a hand off. We used the saved URET strips to find some of them; but most of those were airplanes that were scheduled to enter our airspace prior to the power failure. I had one air carrier call thirty miles north of a VOR at FL400 landing at the Class Bravo Airport. I had to identify him using his stated position and confidence turns since all the RADAR depicted was a left leaner. There was a Mode C Intruder at his three o'clock position at FL340. I gave him a turn forty left; issued the X at 120 and out of FL330 direct to the fix. I switched him to Approach without a hand off when I saw he was going to make it. We were swimming with our heads above water again. I shudder to think what would have occurred had this happened during the daytime with a push. Tech Ops got DARC/DARC up and running. I don't know how much time had passed; enough that several aircraft that other Centers had been holding had to divert for fuel. We started to take manual hand offs under DARC operations at this point. I still received a few calls from lost aircraft needing to start down for their destinations. [We need] live classroom DARC training. Get rid of CBI's! No one listens to them... really. [Also] discussion groups on how to handle situations like this. It has never been talked about. Go look at our ATC Zero contingency plan. You'll be sick.
Center Controller described a chaotic situation occurring when all RADAR and Communications equipment failed during a late night shift during a moderate busy traffic period; the reporter indicating the facility's contingency plan was inadequate.