2005-10 · NASA ASRS report 675765
ZNY CTLR EXPRESSED CONCERN REGARDING NEW ADVANCED TECHNOLOGIES OCEANIC PROCS SYS (ATOPS) EQUIP AND DESCRIBED CONFLICT UTILIZING THE NEW EQUIP.
THE RECENT DEPLOYMENT OF THE ADVANCED TECHNOLOGIES OCEANIC PROCS SYS (ATOPS) OCEAN 21 SITUATION DISPLAY SYS REPRESENTS A SIGNIFICANT CHANGE IN THE WAY IFR FLTS ARE APPROVED INTO OCEANIC AIRSPACE. PREVIOUSLY; USING HARD COPY FLT STRIPS AT SIGNIFICANT FIX POSTINGS; CTLRS IDENTED POTENTIAL CONFLICTS AND ISSUED APPROPRIATE CTL RESTRS IN CONJUNCTION WITH GRANTING ENTRY APPROVAL INTO OCEANIC AIRSPACE. OCEAN 21 (ATOPS) NOW PERFORMS A TFC SEARCH AND PERMITS ENTRY IF NO CONFLICT IS DETECTED -- EVEN WHEN DATA INDICATES A POTENTIAL CONFLICT IS POSSIBLE. ACR X ROUTED FROM EWR ARPT INTO THE NORTH ATLANTIC ICAO (NAT) REGION AND WESTERN ATLANTIC RTE SYS (WATRS) VIA BETNY KUPEC A554 TOOMS. WAS COORD BY ZNY DOMESTIC OFFSHORE RADAR SECTOR 86 OVER BETNY AT XA17Z AT FL370 AND MACH .78. ACR Y (B757) ROUTED FROM EWR ARPT IN WATRS AND THE NAT ICAO REGION VIA AZEZU R511 PAEPR R511 ODEAL A554 TOOMS. AT FL370 AND MACH .79; WAS ALREADY APPROVED INTO THE AIRSPACE FROM ZNY SECTOR 83. ACR X FORWARDED A POS RPT MORE THAN 10 MINS AFTER PASSING BETNY VIA HF RADIO OPERATORS AT COMRDO; AND RPTED BETNY AT XA12Z (5 MINS EARLIER THAN THE COORD TIME OF XA17Z). PREVIOUSLY; OCEAN 21 CALCULATED 11 MINS LONGITUDINAL SEPARATION -- 10 MINS REQUIRED. AFTER UPDATING THE POS OF ACR X BASED ON THE LATEST RPT; OCEAN 21 CALCULATED ABOUT 6 MINS -- TRIGGERING A CONFLICT SUMMARY DIALOGUE BOX. RESPONDING TO THE IMMINENT CONFLICT SUMMARY RPT; RESEARCH REVEALED ACR Y HAD NOT YET FORWARDED A POS RPT. SUBSEQUENTLY; ACR Y RPTED 2 MINS -- WITHIN ALLOWABLE TOLERANCES -- EARLIER THAN COORD; CAUSING OCEAN 21 TO PERFORM AN IMPLIED TFC SEARCH. OCEAN 21 RECALCULATED 8 MINS LONGITUDINAL SEPARATION ON CONVERGING COURSES OF LESS THAN 45 DEGS. DETERMINING THAT FL360 WAS AVAILABLE; I IMMEDIATELY CLRED THE LEAD ACFT (ACR X) TO FL360 TO RESOLVE THE CONFLICT. ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION: OCEAN 21 BEHAVED EXACTLY AS IT WAS DESIGNED TO WORK. FOR UNKNOWN REASONS; ACR Y WAS NEVER COORD BY ZNY R86 AT THE NEW TIME ALTHOUGH A CHANGE BY 3 MINS OR MORE FROM THE COORD TIME MUST BE COORD. PLTS AND CTLRS ARE ALLOWED TO MISS THE MARK-UP TO +/-2 MINS WITHOUT FURTHER NOTIFICATION/COORD. THIS DOES ILLUSTRATE A NEW PROB FOR CTLRS USING THE NEW TECHNOLOGY: PREVIOUSLY; CTLRS MANUALLY CALCULATING AND TRACKING ESTIMATES WOULD IDENT 'TIGHT SITS' AND ISSUE CTL RESTRS IN ORDER TO PREVENT A POTENTIAL LOSS OF SEPARATION DUE TO MINOR (OR NOT SO MINOR) UNRPTED/UNCOORD) CHANGES IN CTL ESTIMATES. OCEAN 21; SATISFIED THAT MINIMUM SEPARATION EXISTS BASED ON CURRENT DATA; DOES NOT TAKE TIME ADJUSTMENTS INTO ACCOUNT UNTIL AFTER THE OCCURRENCE. CTLRS AND PLTS BEWARE.
More incidents for this aircraft family
Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.
Loading the flight search…
Pick an aircraft model — Boeing 737, Airbus A320, A380, Boeing 787 Dreamliner and more — enter your origin airport, and FlightFinder shows every route that plane flies from there with live fares.
We support Boeing 737/747/757/767/777/787, the full Airbus A220/A319/A320/A321/A330/A340/A350/A380 family, Embraer E170/E175/E190/E195, Bombardier CRJ and Dash 8, and the ATR 42/72 turboprops.
Search and schedules are free. Pro ($4.99/month, $39/year, or $99 one-time lifetime) unlocks the enriched flight card — on-time stats, CO₂ per passenger, amenities, live gate & weather — plus My Trips with push alerts.
Live schedules come from Amadeus, AeroDataBox and Travelpayouts. Observed routes (which aircraft actually flew a given city pair) are crowdsourced from adsb.lol ADS-B data under the Open Database License.