Narrative:

I had just walked into the TRACON to open up the mornings positions. At the time the late night midnight flm was busy on the computer; accomplishing his morning duties; while the mid cpc was working the TRACON combined. The weather was foggy and the RVR for the runways was fluctuating between 1200 and 3000 for the touchdown. The shift cpc was working an emergency that needed to get in to the airport. As a result the cpc had to vector about 7 aircraft in order to give the emergency priority to the runway. The late night cpc was coming up on his going home time so I was asked to open final instead of the departure position. The late night cpc was unable to give me a briefing; so I just assumed the position and took over. At that time the emergency made a go around and proceeded to be vectored back to me for sequencing. I asked the emergency if he needed priority handling to the runways as I had 3 to 4 on the final and would have to vector him under the aircraft. He stated that he did need the service; so I vectored him north under a crossing (right to left) air carrier inbound and exchanged traffic. I then vectored the emergency to with a left turn to join the final. The vector would put the emergency in front of the other air carrier with the required 2 mile stagger needed for parallel approaches; since there were not enough personnel to open the monitors. Apparently; I missed the read back or the emergency failed to make the turn. At the time a flm came up next to my right side and starting barking instructions. This may have been a part of why I missed the read back. As a result the emergency went through the localizer. I turned the emergency left to rejoin the localizer and believed that he still would have the required 2 mile staggered separation from the other air carrier now off his left rear going to [parallel runway]. The emergency was at 2;000 ft when I cleared him and was shipped to the tower as soon as he joined the final. We need at least 2 cpc's on the mid night shifts. The flm has a lot of duties to perform before the morning flm arrives and when the weather deteriorates like it did the flm can not help.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: TRACON Controller described an unsafe condition when the handling of an emergency aircraft resulted in one go around and one failure to turn onto the Localizer; staffing was listed a contributory.

Narrative: I had just walked into the TRACON to open up the mornings positions. At the time the late night midnight FLM was busy on the computer; accomplishing his morning duties; while the mid CPC was working the TRACON combined. The weather was foggy and the RVR for the runways was fluctuating between 1200 and 3000 for the touchdown. The shift CPC was working an emergency that needed to get in to the airport. As a result the CPC had to vector about 7 aircraft in order to give the emergency priority to the runway. The late night CPC was coming up on his going home time so I was asked to open FINAL instead of the Departure position. The late night CPC was unable to give me a briefing; so I just assumed the position and took over. At that time the emergency made a go around and proceeded to be vectored back to me for sequencing. I asked the emergency if he needed priority handling to the runways as I had 3 to 4 on the final and would have to vector him under the aircraft. He stated that he did need the service; so I vectored him North under a crossing (right to left) air carrier inbound and exchanged traffic. I then vectored the emergency to with a left turn to join the final. The vector would put the emergency in front of the other air carrier with the required 2 mile stagger needed for parallel approaches; since there were not enough personnel to open the monitors. Apparently; I missed the read back or the emergency failed to make the turn. At the time a FLM came up next to my right side and starting barking instructions. This may have been a part of why I missed the read back. As a result the emergency went through the localizer. I turned the emergency left to rejoin the localizer and believed that he still would have the required 2 mile staggered separation from the other air carrier now off his left rear going to [parallel runway]. The emergency was at 2;000 FT when I cleared him and was shipped to the Tower as soon as he joined the final. We need at least 2 CPC's on the mid night shifts. The FLM has a lot of duties to perform before the morning FLM arrives and when the weather deteriorates like it did the FLM can not help.

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.