Narrative:

I was told this was a wake remnant error and then while I was in with the supervisor watching and listening to the error he said it was also an error because I did not ensure the crj was on a 270 track; not heading; which I gave. I was advised he was on a 260 something track so I didn't have my 30 degrees. So here is the situation; I had B767 heavy descending on the north downwind going to 30L for a visual approach. Crj was coming in from the northeast going to 30R for a visual approach. I got the heavy below the crj and crossed him in front of the crj's path probably 4 or 5 miles in front of him and got him across the localizers where they reported the airport in sight just as they were crossing the right localizer on a base heading. I told him to turn towards the airport and cleared for the visual to 30L. As soon as I did that I came back to the crj and turned him to a 270 heading and descended him to 40 and then asked him to advise the airport in sight. The crj advised the airport in sight and I cleared him for the visual to 30R and called traffic for him about the heavy that was now at his ten o'clock and 4 miles. He advised him in sight but I felt that I had the appropriate separation or less than a 30 degree intercept on both aircraft and didn't think wake turbulence was a factor so I did not tell him to maintain visual separation. I don't think that wake remnant separation should be something we should be having to worry about. It is confusing and I don't think that with standard wake turbulence that we are putting aircraft in dangerous positions.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: M98 Controller was advised of a 'Wake Remnant' separation error; the reporter noting that this separation criteria should not be a controller evaluation criteria.

Narrative: I was told this was a wake remnant error and then while I was in with the supervisor watching and listening to the error he said it was also an error because I did not ensure the CRJ was on a 270 track; not heading; which I gave. I was advised he was on a 260 something track so I didn't have my 30 degrees. So here is the situation; I had B767 heavy descending on the north downwind going to 30L for a visual approach. CRJ was coming in from the northeast going to 30R for a visual approach. I got the heavy below the CRJ and crossed him in front of the CRJ's path probably 4 or 5 miles in front of him and got him across the localizers where they reported the airport in sight just as they were crossing the right localizer on a base heading. I told him to turn towards the airport and cleared for the visual to 30L. As soon as I did that I came back to the CRJ and turned him to a 270 heading and descended him to 40 and then asked him to advise the airport in sight. The CRJ advised the airport in sight and I cleared him for the visual to 30R and called traffic for him about the heavy that was now at his ten o'clock and 4 miles. He advised him in sight but I felt that I had the appropriate separation or less than a 30 degree intercept on both aircraft and didn't think wake turbulence was a factor so I did not tell him to maintain visual separation. I don't think that wake remnant separation should be something we should be having to worry about. It is confusing and I don't think that with standard wake turbulence that we are putting aircraft in dangerous positions.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of July 2013 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.