Any Unknown or Unlisted Aircraft Manufacturer
Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Communication Breakdown; Other / Unknown
ATC Issue All Types
General None Reported / Taken
ATC Equipment / Nav Facility / Buildings; Human Factors; Procedure
While working north departure A80's ARTS interface with all adjacent facilities failed. I first noticed that the next sector wasn't taking my hand offs; and then all departing aircraft began to flash 'DM'; indicating that a FDIO departure message was required. I informed the CIC immediately. All aircraft had to be manually tagged up; departed in the FDIO; and handed off to the next sectors; and all arriving aircraft had to be manually handed off to us from ZTL. The fact that the interface failed isn't necessarily the problem. The complete lack of expeditious handling to fix the problem was the greater evil; as the situation did not get fixed until well into the mid shift. After asking several people involved; it seems the nature of the failure is still unknown; and just seemed to 'fix itself' hours after the failure. I feel the situation was lucky in a way because it happened during beautiful VFR conditions when we weren't very busy. That being said; had this happened during a busy push in IFR conditions I believe it could have resulted in such a way that safety could be compromised and efficiency would be down the drain. We have a lot of people on staff to maintain this equipment and correct any problems that occur. I find it hard to believe that 5-7 hours is an acceptable time frame to remedy an ARTS outage. It's not safe; and our customers deserve much better. Recommendation; when things break; the people that fix them need to identify the problem and fix it. Either more training or better support might be needed. A debrief for those involved identifying the problem and outlining the corrective actions taken is already overdue in my opinion. What broke? Why? Why did it take so long to fix? We had to work hours in bad conditions and I would like to know what is being done to prevent a repeat situation. Also; some recurring training on manual hand off procedures at ZTL may be in order. It seems that automation is relied on so heavily these days that some folks forgot the old trusty 7110.65. That's embarrassing.
A80 Controller voiced concern regarding a recent ARTS failure and the time needed to correct the problem. The reporter recommended a detailed post review on the event.