Tower and TRACON Controllers reported '...an unsafe situation...' when they were forced to use backup communication equipment which does not cover all of their airspace due to a loss of main transmitters and receivers. The reporters stated this is a recurring problem at this facility.
Synopsis
Tower and TRACON Controllers reported '...an unsafe situation...' when they were forced to use backup communication equipment which does not cover all of their airspace due to a loss of main transmitters and receivers. The reporters stated this is a recurring problem at this facility.
Narrative
Approach/departure control lost all frequencies and were forced in the moment to transition to portable transceivers with highly reduced range while they transitioned into ad hoc procedures/agreements to accommodate the outage for the foreseeable future. A decision was made by management to move to TRACAB procedures; requiring all radar positions to be combined to work on a Tower display with only a portable radio while Local Control (LC) was combined to the Ground Control (GC) position. SWAP was in effect; many aircraft were not being released from center due to weather and were asking for Tower enroute options. The workload for GC/LC was significantly higher than any times we would normally combine those positions.The radar position was unable to communicate with airplanes further than 30 miles from the airport below 6000 ft.; and further than 40 miles at any altitude. Due to weather all across the east coast; we received several diversions and low enroute jet aircraft on escape routes from ZZZ1 and ZZZ2 areas. Multiple diversion arrivals were minimum fuel. There was heavy-extreme precipitation moving across our airport eastbound along the final. The increased workload from weather deviations; dissatisfied pilots stuck at low altitudes clogging up the frequency with requests; and lack of several aircraft on frequency to receive from approach control leading them to frequently transmit over approach/other aircraft; multiple adjacent facilities trying to coordinate while unclear of the extent of our limitations; all led to what I believe was an unsafe situation. Our Tower and approach Controllers did a phenomenal job working through adversity and maintaining a safe operation; but they should not have been put in that position to begin with.This needs to be considered a trigger for ATC Limited and contingency plans to divest most of/all of the airspace need to be enacted. There was far too much ambiguity and uncertainty about what our approach control could handle as far as overflight range and altitudes and overall volume of traffic in these conditions. The safest outcome would have been to divest our airspace above 6000 ft. and beyond 30 miles; to only operate arrivals and departures into/out of ZZZ and ZZZ3; and to immediately issue a NOTAM for limited operations. We were simply not equipped to operate IFR traffic into or out of ZZZ4 or other airports beyond 20-30 miles from our airport. Better contingency plans need to be in place for this outage; and the equipment needs to be reviewed and replaced as necessary to reduce the disappointing frequency of this type of outage.
Second reporter narrative
I clocked in for my shift early. As soon as I clocked in all TRACON frequencies; main; standby and pass through; stopped functioning. Controllers on position were only able to use the limited range 'PET' radios for extremely limited communication. Land lines were functioning as normal; so I jumped in and helped ZZZ1 sector 1 and sector 2 with landline coordination. This facility has had multiple events in the last month of radio communication failures that seemly get repaired and put back in service; but after a short time the problems come back. The agency needs to take some acknowledgment and ownership of the persistent problem so there can be a permanent solution. It feels as though the agency is blaming the circumstances of why this may be happening; rather than finding an actual solution to this safety issue.
Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.