Any Unknown or Unlisted Aircraft Manufacturer
Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Air Traffic Control Time Certified In Pos 1 (yrs) 0.5
Workload; Situational Awareness; Communication Breakdown; Distraction
ATC Issue All Types; Airspace Violation All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence
Air Traffic Control Provided Assistance
Procedure; Weather
I was working R60 with a D-Side. There was weather along the departure route for IAD/DCA/BWI; and the departure sector; FLUKY; had been given an in trail restriction of 15 miles; as one; for IAD and DCA departures. When I first arrived; departure was handing me off two departures with less than 5 miles in trail. I called the controller to verify they were aware of the restriction and approved vertical separation for those two aircraft. Several minutes later; there was a large departure push where FLUKY tried to hand off several aircraft; and many of these were not in compliance with the in trail restriction. Many aircraft were deviating; had been assigned different altitudes than what was displayed in the data block (as they did not even have the required lateral separation) and assigned speeds; none of which was coordinated. In addition; there was an arrival to OFP (which needed to be descended almost immediately on contact) trapped on top of the departures that should have been vectored or assigned routing to enter another sector. This situation was particularly dangerous because the adjacent airspace was working a high volume of descending arrival traffic opposite of the flight path that the departures were deviating on; and the departures required numerous point outs and coordination with several other sectors. This coordination created an unmanageable workload even with a D side to aid in coordination. The sector became overloaded and we shut off departures. However; many aircraft still entered the airspace even though we had not accepted the handoffs. As the aircraft started to deviate further to the east; FLUKY started to hand them off to sector 20. Many of these aircraft still passed through our airspace and sector 20's without coordination. There was confusion over what frequency these aircraft had been given by FLUKY and we were unable to communicate with many of them.There were in trail restrictions in place before most of these aircraft even departed that was not complied with. Regardless of why the departure sector was unable to comply with these restrictions; traffic management needs to have procedures to ensure that these restrictions are held; especially when the aircraft are still on the ground and there is no reason to overload sectors with airplanes that could have been waiting there safely.
I came into work to witness the most defined line of weather that I have ever seen since working as an air traffic controller. This line extended several hundred miles from Virginia to Maine. At no point did I see the weather dissipate or build; it contained no noticeable breaks that aircraft could fly through; and it moved at a constant rate from West to East. Throughout my first three session I watched the line slowly infringe on the ZDC airspace. Due to the weather additional ZNY departure aircraft were rerouted south through the Philly Area's airspace including many Metro arrivals (IAD; BWI; DCA and satellites). These Metro arrivals transition through the northern low sectors (51 &53) in our Area over the BILIT fix. Potomac approach shut off Metro traffic over BILIT. This caused the remaining Metro arrivals to be rerouted south over ORF and around the weather. After I completed my relief briefing at sector 58 I noticed the Enroute Decision Support Tool of sector 54 and 23 was full and asked the R-side if I could sit with him to lend a hand thinking his already busy airspace was about to get much more complex. In the next 35-45 minutes the sector blew up. Data tags were overlapping and making it hard to see who was level or transitioning. The Metro arrivals at altitude were pinned on top of all the traffic flows heading southbound. The Front Line Manager (FLM) for our area called Giant Killer to make sure that the restricted area 386 would remain cold so that we could vector the Metros out to the East over the water and descend them under our southbound departure flow. He told me later that he attempted several phone calls but Giant Killer never picked up the phone. My FLM informed me that he then called Traffic Management Unit (TMU) and made clear his concern that Giant Killer would not answer the phone and we needed the airspace to remain cold at which time he was reassured that the airspace would not go active and we would own it for the duration of the push.At the worst moment in the middle of the push in an already unsafe situation someone answered 386 and informed the Area that the airspace was hot. I immediately called Giant Killer begging for any airspace that they could release due to the fact that we have traffic trapped at altitude that needed to descend through already busy departure flows; they told me unable and that they were exclusive; if we needed airspace call on a case by case point out. Afterwards when I reviewed the session on Falcon I could only see three flights operating in the airspace.The R-side did an excellent job in not panicking; keeping his cool; and working through the situation. As a D-side I caught at least 4 instances where my R-side climbed or descended aircraft through other traffic. It was completely not his fault; the situation we were in made it extremely difficult to separate data tags let alone control traffic. Sector 39 which is located above 54 &23 was trying to keep the Metro arrivals FL360 and above out of our airspace until the southern part of our sector due to the traffic saturation. My R-side was accepting point outs on vectored aircraft through 6;000 feet of his airspace while climbing traffic into sector 39 via AIT. This led to jets descending to FL280 head on with PHL arrivals from the south descending to FL290. On multiple occasions I had to coordinate with sectors 34; 39 and 54 on which aircraft they wanted stopped.This situation was made much worse due to the fact that we had Metro arrivals rerouted south through our Area over 2 hours past Potomac shutting off the arrival. The sector started deteriorating; Potomac; GRACO sector shut the door on us. These were not only International flights these were departures from ISP; HVN; MVY etc. These aircraft flew over a hundred miles out of the way and continued to add complexity not only to sectors 39 and 54 in our area but increased the workload for already busy Areas 2 and 3. At ZDC it seems like we get the same speech every year; our Chief and Facility Representative again reiterated it before this thunderstorm season. 'This year we will do a better job of overloading sectors due to weather'. Not only did we overload sectors 54 and 23 but managed to trap a bunch of airplanes who needed to descend through its airspace above it while taking away almost half of its airspace and giving it to the military. When PXT and 386 both go hot the CCV has approximately 30 miles of airspace laterally at its smallest point; this creates a chokepoint for all transitioning aircraft in the sector. This is why losing 386 in the middle of our situation crippled the sector. At no point did we call weather nor did we have time to. It was extremely difficult for the radar team to separate data blocks and control traffic. Multiple aircraft changed their destinations due to the reroute. If any aircraft had an emergency in the midst of this we would have a hard time doing anything. While this was going on I just remembered thinking how dangerous this was and how this situation needs to be prevented. I attached screenshots from Falcon.1.) Forward this to the ZDC Safety council; so that we may have a TMR panel put together and review the actions of TMU on [date removed] specifically why traffic was routed on the Eastern side of weather over 2 hours after the route was shut off.2.) Figure out some sort of process to be able to freeze the airspace of 386 when it is already cold to ensure it stays that way until situations like this can be resolved. The LOA with Giant Killer needs to be revisited.3.) Learn from this and ensure that it does not happen again. I cannot think of a more cut and dry situation; giant line of weather with the same speed and intensity moving West to East into our airspace. If this is the best that we can do at ZDC than our system is broken.
Two ZDC Controllers reported bad weather where aircraft had to deviate and weather was restricting movement. Controllers attempted to get use of Special Use Airspace but had to coordinate on a plane by plane basis which added to the workload. Controllers wanted the Front Line Manager and Traffic Management Unit (TMU) to ensure restrictions were being held and that aircraft should have been held on the ground instead of becoming airborne adding to their traffic load. Controller wanted to review this session with TMU; and a safety council. Traffic was inundating the controller workforce and due to weather they were limited in what they could do.