Small Aircraft; High Wing; 1 Eng; Retractable Gear
Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Air Traffic Control Time Certified In Pos 1 (yrs) 5
Distraction; Situational Awareness; Communication Breakdown; Confusion
ATC Issue All Types; Conflict NMAC; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Air Traffic Control Separated Traffic; Flight Crew Took Evasive Action
Human Factors; Procedure
While working CIC I was mostly monitoring the high-volume (6 or so aircraft in the south pattern) training at LC2 but was asked to help out GC with the creation of an hourly ATIS broadcast and to take numbers for the traffic count. It seemed as though the trainee and trainer had things under control at that point; but the next thing I saw after just beginning the ATIS recording was two [small high wing single engine aircraft] on short final in approximately the same position for Runway 9R. The process to get them apart again was already being ordered but it certainly appeared that the two aircraft were 'very' close to each other; and I mean like no more than 20 ft apart. It even appeared at one point that the aircraft slightly trailing had to dip his wing to get around the other. I am to believe that one of them was forgotten about on the downwind and turned base on his own only to be unseen by the personnel in the tower cab and by anyone in either airplane until the very last moment. I was relieved soon after the incident and can only assume that the pilots filed quite-appropriate NMAC reports. An automated ATIS to reduce the 'heads down' time would of certainly kept me in the game and watching the complex situation going on. We're just getting through this most recent round of recurrent training to which it says that the CIC should keep in mind the skill levels of both the OJTI and the OJT when training is in progress and perhaps I failed at that a bit; but again it seemed as though they had things under control when my attention was diverted to more mundane tasks. I'm not sure if the pair had already accomplished the training; but it apparently didn't work and things got out of hand before the OJTI could do something about it.
SFB Controller while working as CIC observes two aircraft about 20 feet apart being worked by the local control.