Narrative:

I was working dispatch and I received a screen printer alert of a reported fire in the C90 TRACON and that the facility had been evacuated. Moments after the alert all of my inbound to ord [flights] went into holds. Ord weather was VMC and did not require an alternate so none were planned for any of the arrivals into ord. I received ACARS messages from 3 inbound flights one right after another and I began to put together a plan of action to get all of these aircraft on the ground safely in a considerably short period of time. At the same time I was also dealing with a weather event and ground stop elsewhere that required airborne holding; which required me to provide bingo numbers to be calculated for possible diversion to alternate. In the plan of action for one of the flights I may have improperly calculated fuel numbers to get a fuel burn for an alternate to which I diverted the flight. After events had calmed down and I had time to reflect and review I feel in hindsight that I should have amended the flights destination to [the alternate] instead of the course of action I had taken. My main concern was to get the passengers; crew; and aircraft on the ground safely. As to why this happened I feel I must report a combination of factors that influenced my action at that time: 1) the unusual fire event in C90 TRACON putting all inbound flights into a hold situation in VMC weather requiring no alternate planning for ord arrivals. 2) the need to get the flights safely on the ground. 3) weather events creating the need for divided attention in a different airport. 4) the time element in which I need to get these flights down. 5) the flood of non-essential ACARS messages from cockpit crews wanting to know what was happening in C90 TRACON (this coupled with the volume of other ACARS messages about 'can we keep this aircraft'; 'what will be our edct time back to ord' and is 'such and such flight still running on-time'; along with redundant information for waiting flights that ord had been ground stopped). 6) the volume of telephone calls from crews and stations wanting and giving the same non-essential information as state in item 5 but over the phone; all contributed to divide my attention at a critical time of dealing with a heavy workload. I have been of the opinion that ACARS communication between dispatchers and cockpit crews should be limited to 'safety of passengers or flight' issues only. No 'what is the score of the football; baseball; hockey; and basketball game'; or 'can you call the hotel to get the van for us'; or 'what time does my flight home leave and what gate' and items such as 'can we keep this aircraft' or 'what is our edct time back to XXX' are questions that the cockpit crews can find out once the are on the ground.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Dispatcher describes a chaotic afternoon with multiple aircraft holding for two different airports and the communication overload this generates.

Narrative: I was working Dispatch and I received a screen printer alert of a reported fire in the C90 TRACON and that the facility had been evacuated. Moments after the alert all of my inbound to ORD [flights] went into holds. ORD weather was VMC and did not require an alternate so none were planned for any of the arrivals into ORD. I received ACARS messages from 3 inbound flights one right after another and I began to put together a plan of action to get all of these aircraft on the ground safely in a considerably short period of time. At the same time I was also dealing with a weather event and ground stop elsewhere that required airborne holding; which required me to provide bingo numbers to be calculated for possible diversion to alternate. In the plan of action for one of the flights I may have improperly calculated fuel numbers to get a fuel burn for an alternate to which I diverted the flight. After events had calmed down and I had time to reflect and review I feel in hindsight that I should have amended the flights destination to [the alternate] instead of the course of action I had taken. My main concern was to get the passengers; crew; and aircraft on the ground safely. As to why this happened I feel I must report a combination of factors that influenced my action at that time: 1) The unusual fire event in C90 TRACON putting all inbound flights into a hold situation in VMC weather requiring no alternate planning for ORD arrivals. 2) The need to get the flights safely on the ground. 3) Weather events creating the need for divided attention in a different airport. 4) The time element in which I need to get these flights down. 5) The flood of non-essential ACARS messages from cockpit crews wanting to know what was happening in C90 TRACON (this coupled with the volume of other ACARS messages about 'can we keep this aircraft'; 'what will be our EDCT time back to ORD' and is 'such and such flight still running on-time'; along with redundant information for waiting flights that ORD had been ground stopped). 6) The volume of telephone calls from crews and stations wanting and giving the same non-essential information as state in item 5 but over the phone; all contributed to divide my attention at a critical time of dealing with a heavy workload. I have been of the opinion that ACARS communication between dispatchers and cockpit crews should be limited to 'safety of passengers or flight' issues only. No 'what is the score of the football; baseball; hockey; and basketball game'; or 'can you call the hotel to get the van for us'; or 'what time does my flight home leave and what gate' and items such as 'can we keep this aircraft' or 'what is our EDCT time back to XXX' are questions that the cockpit crews can find out once the are on the ground.

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.