Any Unknown or Unlisted Aircraft Manufacturer
Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Air Traffic Control Time Certified In Pos 1 (yrs) 2.8
Training / Qualification; Communication Breakdown; Confusion; Situational Awareness
ATC Issue All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Air Traffic Control Issued Advisory / Alert; General Release Refused / Aircraft Not Accepted; General Flight Cancelled / Delayed; General Evacuated
Manuals; Weather; Procedure
On [one] evening; TRACON had to exit the control room to take shelter due to an [emergency situation]. Nobody seemed to know exactly how to handle the situation. TRACON departure called me to give me their airspace. Other departures called other sectors airspace. Then management said nobody really had the airspace and that the TRACON was ATC Zero. So we weren't allowed to provide IFR services in the TRACON's airspace. I have yet to receive contingency training for such situations as required in the 3120.4. My understanding is that [ARTCC Sector] should have taken the entire TRACON's airspace but nobody on either side really seemed to know what to do. Just seems like something we should train for and be prepared for annually.I would recommend that management actually put effort in areas that matter such as emergency training rather than worrying about water bottles in the area. We have annual mandatory meetings on ski country; weather and things like that but it would be nice to have annual contingency training as well.
D01 TRACON had to evacuate their facility and declared 'ATC Zero' due to an emergency situation. There are procedures in place in which the ARTCC takes over the airspace of the TRACON. The ARTCC personnel did not know how to implement the procedure for this situation.