MD-80 Series (DC-9-80) Undifferentiated or Other Model
Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Air Traffic Control Time Certified In Pos 1 (yrs) 1
Distraction; Situational Awareness; Communication Breakdown
ATC Issue All Types; Conflict Airborne Conflict; Deviation - Track / Heading All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance; Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence
Air Traffic Control Issued New Clearance; Flight Crew Returned To Clearance
Weather; Human Factors; Procedure
Aircraft X was deviating left from ORL and over INPIN area at FL350. INPIN is a common arrival fix that aircraft are descending to FL270. Aircraft Y was southbound at FL350 and the data block showed FL270. He was in the hand off flash to us. We called J86 ZEPHYR and pointed out Aircraft X deviating left to VQQ. They did not reference traffic. As we saw; Aircraft Y was on an intercepting heading to Aircraft X; my trainee instructed Aircraft X to fly heading 360 for traffic. Aircraft X responded that he was unable and that it would put him in weather. Trainee reissued the clearance and said 'Unable weather deviation; fly heading 360 for traffic.' The pilot again responded that he was unable. I keyed up and told Aircraft X; 'Understand you are [exercising your emergency authority]; if not; fly heading 360.' He responded that he was not; and that he was in the turn. I called traffic at 11:00 and 5 miles southbound; same altitude. Aircraft X never had the traffic in site. After clearing traffic; we re-cleared him to deviate and issued the frequency change to ZJX. I would like to start issuing briefs to other pilots about the necessity to follow a controller's instruction. Whether or not they want to argue it is fine; but they should be complying by the instruction first - and then they can question it. The current attitude of; 'I'm not going to do that so issue me something else' is extremely hazardous and will eventually result in a LoSS (Loss of Standard Separation) or worse. We continually assign routes that go through weather and expect pilots to deviate when they get close to the weather. This is also hazardous; we should not be assigning any routes close to the weather; to alleviate this from even being a problem. By assigning these routes; we open ourselves up to the problems such as above.
Miami Center Controller reported an aircraft that was in conflict with another and the pilot did not want to turn away from traffic because of weather.