MD-80 Series (DC-9-80) Undifferentiated or Other Model
Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Confusion
ATC Issue All Types; Airspace Violation All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
General None Reported / Taken
ATC Equipment / Nav Facility / Buildings
I was working Sectors 15; 97 and 98 combined up. A B737 checked in at FL290 proceeding direct UKW with the aircraft having no conflictions; I proceeded to continue my scan of what was going on. Fifty miles south I observed a VFR aircraft flashing at me going to Amarillo in coast track which is common for that area if they are climbing out of Lubbock. Conflict Alert was going off with the VFR aircraft and a beacon code of XXXX which at the time was the VFR flight. So I tracked the aircraft to that code and it tracked up. I did have a notice in my ETSD for a code change for that VFR aircraft in which I did when he checked on. The B737 also had the beacon code XXXX assigned to him and briefly tracked down to the location of the VFR aircraft flight and disappeared from my scope. Several minutes passed and SPS-HI (F47) of ZFW called me asking about a Mode C intruder of a code of XXXX. I asked if they had the track or the handoff on them and they told me they didn't. So quick thinking I had to hit the track button and pick on that code with the VFR aircraft; I had and it tracked up. I had to reroute the aircraft back in my airspace and to UKW and was able to handoff the aircraft to the correct sector. In ERAM; if a target drops off it should auto populate; in this case it didn't. I am not sure what went wrong if it was a computer glitch or a bad command on my part. All in all the aircraft was safe but I ended up deviating ZFW airspace. I am curious to know what happened so I can prevent it from happening again. With the ERAM implementation going on I'm not sure what suggestion to make. I know that ZFW is still on HOST which at times can cause some bugs with ERAM. I just hope we can prevent this from happening.
ZAB Controller described an airspace incursion claiming an ERAM anomaly contributed to the event.