Narrative:

An md-80 departure was one mile off the departure end and I thought he reported 'we need a heading'. He might have said 'we have no heading'. I issued a 070 heading and checked to ensure spacing was adequate with the preceding departure. I was coordinating with the next sector when I saw the flight had not turned and questioned his heading. He clarified he had a moving map failure and had no heading display and was using the attitude indicator for guidance. During this time the flight tracked nearly perfectly on course to the desired track to ronii. I coordinated again with the next sector advising the flight was unable to fly a heading and had had a map failure and then switched the flight over. The succeeding aircraft were able to maintain visual separation.during this time I do not recall seeing traffic off runway 9L being a factor; however I can't say for sure without seeing a replay of the event.the RNAV procedures need a fail safe. When aircraft have equipment issues off the departure end; we are always scrambling to fix a situation that is already unsafe and this will eventually happen in IMC conditions. Perhaps a heading-altitude change pre-coordinated.possible pilot training on how to report map/heading failures during this critical time of flight might also be helpful.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: An Air Traffic Controller provided assistance to the flight crew of an MD-88 who lost all heading displays shortly after takeoff while navigating via an RNAV SID from ATL. The reporter suggested development of specific procedures to be followed in the event of lost lateral nav cabability in the vicinity of high density airports; especially when using closely spaced parllel runways.

Narrative: An MD-80 departure was one mile off the departure end and I thought he reported 'We need a heading'. He might have said 'We have no heading'. I issued a 070 heading and checked to ensure spacing was adequate with the preceding departure. I was coordinating with the next sector when I saw the flight had not turned and questioned his heading. He clarified he had a moving map failure and had no heading display and was using the attitude indicator for guidance. During this time the flight tracked nearly perfectly on course to the desired track to RONII. I coordinated again with the next sector advising the flight was unable to fly a heading and had had a map failure and then switched the flight over. The succeeding aircraft were able to maintain visual separation.During this time I do not recall seeing traffic off Runway 9L being a factor; however I can't say for sure without seeing a replay of the event.The RNAV procedures need a fail safe. When aircraft have equipment issues off the departure end; we are always scrambling to fix a situation that is already unsafe and this will eventually happen in IMC conditions. Perhaps a heading-altitude change pre-coordinated.Possible pilot training on how to report map/heading failures during this critical time of flight might also be helpful.

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.