MD-80 Series (DC-9-80) Undifferentiated or Other Model
Air Traffic Control Time Certified In Pos 1 (yrs) 20
Situational Awareness; Workload; Physiological - Other
ATC Issue All Types; Conflict Airborne Conflict; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence
Air Traffic Control Issued New Clearance; Flight Crew FLC complied w / Automation / Advisory
Human Factors; Staffing; Weather
I am a Diabetic and I had been on position about 1 hour and 55 minutes. I am required to test my blood every 2 hours. Traffic had been busy all morning. The weather had been moving in from the northwest during my time on position. Rides were bad from FL240 all the way up to FL430. I did have a D-side but he was only a D side with no radar experience. For the most part everything was going well until Aircraft X checked on climbing to FL340. I needed to swap out Aircraft Y who needed to be lower to meet an SOP. I descended Aircraft Y to FL330 and asked Aircraft X to increase his climb. He informed me that he was going to climb slowly. I then had my D side ask sector 83 for lower on Aircraft Y. I thought I gave Aircraft Y lower and asked him for 2000 feet a minute to get him under Aircraft X. I was extremely busy doing other things and when I got back to the situation I noticed Aircraft Y was at FL330. I asked him for a greater rate of descent at which time he told me that he didn't believe he had clearance below 330. I told him to descend rapidly. Aircraft X told me that he saw traffic at FL330 and was descending. I assumed at this point he was getting an RA. I stopped Aircraft Y and asked him if he could climb back up. I'm not sure of the separation between the two because I went on working other traffic when I noticed that both aircraft were heading in opposite directions. I told my supervisor at which time I noticed that I was coming up on 2 hours and told her I needed to get out to test my blood sugar. There were so many things that went wrong in this scenario I don't know where to begin. 1st I think Traffic Management Unit (TMU) should have done a better job routing aircraft out of my airspace.2. I probably should have had a tracker but I really had things under control until this situation came up.3. My Supervisor should have had a better idea of when I needed to test my sugar and my time on position.4. My D side should have noticed that I didn't give Aircraft Y lower if I didn't. 5. Staffing in Area 7 at ZID is getting too low and there are few trainee's to replace the numerous employees leaving.6. I; at the very least should have had an extra set of eyes on the scope.7. I shouldn't have tried to swap those two aircraft out when I was that busy.8. My D side didn't have the experience to move aircraft out of our sector on his own.9. The Supervisor should have known that the D side was inexperienced at moving aircraft out and should have helped him.10. The Area Manager (Who I know) was watching this go down and he should have had TMU move aircraft out of the sector.11. Either I or sector 83 put FL310 in data block before the aircraft was issued this. (Don't preload data blocks)I'm sure I'm missing another ten things that could be improved but I just can't think about them at this time.
We were on a heading for weather. NE of BWG Indy center freq 123.77 climbing to FL330. Climbing through FL320 got an RA to descend. We descended to 310 when RA stopped. After clear of conflict climbed to FL330. We're were approximately 140 miles NE of BWW on assigned heading of 225 for weather.Not sure what caused this event. ATC was climbing us and descending the other aircraft and we were crossing paths. TCAS worked as it should.
Two ZID controllers and the First Officer of the MD80 involved described a loss of separation event.