Narrative:

I was working PA-46 northbound climbing to FL180 approximately out of FL170 when he says he's an emergency; single engine; no power; can't hold altitude. I vectored him to the nearest airport. He got the airport in sight and I cleared him for the visual approach. I noticed traffic south of the airport and asked if he'd rather be on airport advisory frequency or with me. In a nutshell he said he'd rather stay with me and circled the airport to troubleshoot the problem. During this whole time frame; I had about 3 departures and one aircraft requesting a complex re-route. I must have made at least 5 transmissions to the re-route aircraft before getting the correct route. A point out had to be accomplished with the new route. I called the supervisor to help me get it in uret; it got in; but incorrectly; which caused need of more transmissions to the aircraft as well as too much attention focused on the uret. PA-46 came back and said he would land; his engine is still sputtering. I in turn terminated his radar service; had him squawk VFR and gave a frequency change when I should have had him report IFR cancellation with me or on the ground. He landed safely but the issue is my incorrect termination phraseology. In hind sight I should have just handed the re-route aircraft off to the next sector and had him request the route change there. I spent way too much focus and attention on him as opposed to the emergency. It probably sidetracked me.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Enroute Controller failed to utilize proper RADAR termination phraseology with an emergency aircraft; distracted by a complicated re-route effort.

Narrative: I was working PA-46 northbound climbing to FL180 approximately out of FL170 when he says he's an emergency; single engine; no power; can't hold altitude. I vectored him to the nearest airport. He got the airport in sight and I cleared him for the Visual Approach. I noticed traffic south of the airport and asked if he'd rather be on airport advisory frequency or with me. In a nutshell he said he'd rather stay with me and circled the airport to troubleshoot the problem. During this whole time frame; I had about 3 departures and one aircraft requesting a complex re-route. I must have made at least 5 transmissions to the re-route aircraft before getting the correct route. A point out had to be accomplished with the new route. I called the Supervisor to help me get it in URET; it got in; but incorrectly; which caused need of more transmissions to the aircraft as well as too much attention focused on the URET. PA-46 came back and said he would land; his engine is still sputtering. I in turn terminated his RADAR service; had him squawk VFR and gave a frequency change when I should have had him report IFR cancellation with me or on the ground. He landed safely but the issue is my incorrect termination phraseology. In hind sight I should have just handed the re-route aircraft off to the next sector and had him request the route change there. I spent way too much focus and attention on him as opposed to the emergency. It probably sidetracked me.

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.