B737-800
Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Air Traffic Control Time Certified In Pos 1 (yrs) 3
Situational Awareness; Workload; Distraction; Confusion; Communication Breakdown; Time Pressure; Troubleshooting
ATC Issue All Types; Airspace Violation All Types; Conflict Airborne Conflict; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence
Air Traffic Control Separated Traffic
Human Factors; Airspace Structure; Procedure; Weather
This event was bound to happen. We had all warning areas active. W4645A and W465B were capped and active FL300 and below. W174 was active FL500 and below. Our MNATE departures were deviating into our Miami arrivals. All aircraft filed over CANOA and MAXIM were deviating into the warning area. I advised the Controller in Charge (CIC) that this is a problem and that the aircraft will not make it over CANOA or MAXIM and that our departures are deviating into the arrivals. I also asked the CIC for miles in trail out of the MNATE Departure Transition Area (DTA) due to the added complexity. The CIC returned and said that Missions and the Traffic Management Unit (TMU) advised us to call TARPON (the controlling agency over the warning areas) to make point-outs for the aircraft and that we will basically have to point them out until TARPON says unable and then Missions and TMU will have to come up with another plan. I called with several point-outs and TARPON approved many of them. I took radar on Aircraft X from Havana and was aware the aircraft was deviating to the right towards W465A and B. I called TARPON with that point out and the R-Side requested I point out a MNATE departure in addition to Aircraft X that was heading southbound also towards W465A and B that could not turn westbound. TARPON denied the point-outs saying they were no longer in communication with Aircraft Y in W465A and B. I advised the R-Side and CIC and Aircraft Z clipped the west side of W465A. The R-Side was able to force the MNATE departure to the west remaining clear of the warning areas. This was horrible and completely unsafe. I have heard of this happening before. When we have the warning areas active and TARPON is unable to cap W174 or W465 to an altitude that will actually give us an out. We need another plan and cannot just 'bet' on TARPON accepting point-outs from us. It puts the controllers in a bad situation and especially the aircraft involved in a very unsafe situation. The lack of urgency in working out a plan is unacceptable. We needed help from TMU and we had to basically deal with our situation without help of forming a plan before an unsafe situation developed. I recommend shutting down CANOA/MAXIM and TADPO IMMEDIATELY when weather prevents aircraft from remaining on route when the warning areas are active and there is weather. These aircraft need to be safely rerouted to avoid these areas. We cannot just depend on TARPON to accept our point-outs. This should be the 'norm'; not waiting until something bad happens and then reacting afterwards.
I was working R26 with a whole lot of weather and all of the Warning Areas were active. When I took the sector; management was already aware that all of the aircraft were deviating into the Warning Areas. The Military Desk told us to keep on giving them point outs as they were not going to give us back any of the airspace. This was no surprise due to the fact that the military takes the airspace whenever they want even though they have absolutely no aircraft in them and all of our aircraft have to deviate into them. Well; Tarpon Control was accepting every point out until they decided to stop taking point outs for this one aircraft. Aircraft X came over from Havana already deviating for weather and went right into W465A. I asked the pilot if he could possibly find a gap in the weather so he wouldn't transit the warning area but his response was 'Negative'. This has been an ongoing issue since I started working here. I've been told since day one that it's never going to be fixed because the airspace belongs to the military and they will never give it back to us.I'm sure you've heard this before but Sector 26 is designed for us to fail. I believe we have less than 15 miles in between the warning areas to run north and southbound traffic. We have head on situations on a daily basis and this has been like this since day one. If an aircraft has to deviate any more than 5 degrees on either side of the airway; we immediately loose the 3 miles we need to keep between a Warning Area. So I hope this report helps us in the future.
ZMA Controllers report of aircraft deviations due to weather. Controllers ask for a plan of action from the Traffic Management Unit (TMU) and are instructed to point out aircraft. The Controllers do so until the other facility no longer accepts point outs which results in airspace deviations due to aircraft deviating for weather.