Commercial Fixed Wing
Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Air Traffic Control Time Certified In Pos 1 (yrs) 7
Workload; Time Pressure; Confusion; Communication Breakdown
ATC Issue All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance; Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence
Air Traffic Control Separated Traffic
Human Factors; Procedure
Morning arrival aircraft; first group of aircraft inbound for the day. There is an area of weather just west of finals runway 16R and runway 16L moving NE bound. Take position AR2 to work the arrival RAMMS/TOMSM gate with AR1 and AR3 arrival gates also opened. Told by the Traffic Manager; we are going to run ILS runway 16R and Visuals runway 16L and hopefully get all these aircraft in before the weather moves in. The first two aircraft next to each other on final could not see the airport and both had to do the ILS. Then a mad scramble for switching runways for the ILS approaches to runway 16L and runway 17R; because the 16's are too close to run ILS's next to each other. At this time no rate was slowed down; no holding of aircraft by the Center; it was still full speed ahead with all aircraft. As the weather moved further East; the wind shears arrived with the winds switching to 330/30kts. Sixteen airplanes were in final airspace at this time; with two go arounds talking to departure controllers. Finally the TM shut Center down and told Arrival controllers to hold the aircraft they had. There was so much confusion in the room because the TM did not communicate with all controllers as needed. One final controller had 3 different runways tagged on their aircraft because they didn't know where to take them. One final had 9 airplanes to hold on final and the other final had 7 airplanes to hold. At this time South Departure controller on DR4 had a heavy aircraft depart that needed to return to the airport. The departure controller did not know where to take them.Plan ahead. Don't hope things will work the way you want. This TM should have planned to run dual ILS approaches to runway 16L and runway 17R from the beginning. Then if the visuals were making it; bonus. To be held accountable for all the confusion and chaos caused by not preplanning. This hope it works is not how we are supposed to control!
D01 Controller reports of a shift where the TMC had planned one operation but that didn't work. Confusion ensued along with holding of aircraft; not knowing what runway to vector aircraft to; communication issues; and a departure aircraft that needed to return to the field.