Narrative:

A319 departed dal on the LOA heading and altitude of H130 climbing to 050. On initial contact I responded; 'A319; regional departure; radar contact; climb and maintain 060.' A319 read back the new altitude assignment. A few moments later; it looked to me like A319 had made a right turn. I asked him to verify heading and he responded with something similar to 'heading 240; resuming the departure as cleared.' at this point; I realized that he had traffic head on climbing out of 050; traffic south of him at 040; and traffic that was east/northeast of him that had departed dal right after him. I issued a series of turns; stop climb; immediate turns and climbs; traffic calls to keep the aircraft from merging with each other. At some point; I asked the pilot who had issued the clearance to 'resume the departure' and he responded that I had given it to him. I told him that I had identified myself as 'regional departure'; not 'resume the departure'. My assumption was that he had misunderstood; because this same situation has happened numerous times in the past due to the wording sounding very similar. Later; after I issued the pilot the 'possible pilot deviation' instructions and switched his frequency to ZFW; he apologized and said that it was a language issue (it sounded like he had a foreign accent); and that normally he would read back that portion of the clearance for verification and was sorry that he had not done so. The omic listened to the replay and said that I had issued the clearance correctly and that it was plainly heard that I said 'regional departure'. The pilot never responded that he was resuming the departure and the facility has processed the mor as a pilot deviation. Within the last year; our facility addressed the possibility of changing the name of our facility to something other than 'regional'. One of the reasons we looked at a change was because of this very same scenario that has happened to almost everyone. Unfortunately; a name change was voted down by our facility personnel and management. It appears to possibly be a safety issue that the name of our facility; at least on the departure sectors; can be misinterpreted so easily as a control instruction. On other positions; where we call our facility 'regional approach'; this problem does not seem to occur. This is probably due to the fact that 'resume the approach' is a clearance that would rarely be issued; but 'resume the departure' is a clearance given quite frequently. I would suggest either a complete name change for the facility or some type of waiver that would allow us to identify ourselves on initial contact as 'departure' on the departure positions. Another possible solution would be if the towers in our airspace would instruct the pilots to 'contact regional departure' rather than 'contact departure.' at least then the pilots will be expecting us to identify as 'regional departure.' absent a facility name change or waiver for initial identification; if a pilot doesn't give a full read back as he or she understands the clearance; then there is no way for a controller to anticipate or correct the misinterpretation.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: D10 Departure Controller described a conflict event reportedly resulting from the flight crew confusing the ATC facility name 'Regional Departure' with a 'resume departure' instructions.

Narrative: A319 departed DAL on the LOA heading and altitude of H130 climbing to 050. On initial contact I responded; 'A319; Regional Departure; RADAR contact; climb and maintain 060.' A319 read back the new altitude assignment. A few moments later; it looked to me like A319 had made a right turn. I asked him to verify heading and he responded with something similar to 'Heading 240; resuming the departure as cleared.' At this point; I realized that he had traffic head on climbing out of 050; traffic south of him at 040; and traffic that was east/northeast of him that had departed DAL right after him. I issued a series of turns; stop climb; immediate turns and climbs; traffic calls to keep the aircraft from merging with each other. At some point; I asked the pilot who had issued the clearance to 'resume the departure' and he responded that I had given it to him. I told him that I had identified myself as 'Regional Departure'; not 'resume the departure'. My assumption was that he had misunderstood; because this same situation has happened numerous times in the past due to the wording sounding very similar. Later; after I issued the pilot the 'possible pilot deviation' instructions and switched his frequency to ZFW; he apologized and said that it was a language issue (it sounded like he had a foreign accent); and that normally he would read back that portion of the clearance for verification and was sorry that he had not done so. The OMIC listened to the replay and said that I had issued the clearance correctly and that it was plainly heard that I said 'Regional Departure'. The pilot never responded that he was resuming the departure and the facility has processed the MOR as a pilot deviation. Within the last year; our facility addressed the possibility of changing the name of our facility to something other than 'Regional'. One of the reasons we looked at a change was because of this very same scenario that has happened to almost everyone. Unfortunately; a name change was voted down by our facility personnel and management. It appears to possibly be a safety issue that the name of our facility; at least on the departure sectors; can be misinterpreted so easily as a control instruction. On other positions; where we call our facility 'Regional Approach'; this problem does not seem to occur. This is probably due to the fact that 'resume the approach' is a clearance that would rarely be issued; but 'resume the departure' is a clearance given quite frequently. I would suggest either a complete name change for the facility or some type of waiver that would allow us to identify ourselves on initial contact as 'Departure' on the departure positions. Another possible solution would be if the Towers in our airspace would instruct the pilots to 'contact Regional Departure' rather than 'contact Departure.' At least then the pilots will be expecting us to identify as 'Regional Departure.' Absent a facility name change or waiver for initial identification; if a pilot doesn't give a full read back as he or she understands the clearance; then there is no way for a controller to anticipate or correct the misinterpretation.

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.