Narrative:

I was working the radar at sector 17/18 combined; was talking to both airplanes. I issued the standard crossing clearance to a B757; 'cross 25 miles east of bos at FL280'. There were a number of other things going on in the area; traffic wise; including a global hawk uav that was holding in airspace on my sector's northern boundary. The supervisors; tmu and military coordinators had been trying to figure out for hours what we were going to do with the uav because we do not normally work them and have no procedures in place for working them currently. I was distracted by that activity; as well as my regular traffic; including issuing reroutes to two other aircraft; and did not notice that an A380 was head-on with the B757. The two were approximately 1.5-2 minutes from losing separation; and I panicked and told the B757 to start down; no delay through FL340; then turned him 10 left. I realized I had meant to turn him right; so I turned the A380 10 left; also. I then noticed that was not going to be quite enough; so I turned them each another 10 left. I told the B757 to report leaving FL340; then a foreign aircraft asked a question; and I am not sure if I lost separation or not; it was very close. The hit prior to losing separation the B757 was at FL344. By the time the B757 was able to report; he said he was almost through FL330; and they were at 3 miles on my scope. Neither my d-side nor I caught it until it would have been too late; but the B757 had not started descending. Had I taken half a second longer to assess the situation; I would have just told the B757 to maintain FL360 until I saw him clear of the traffic. I then made the situation worse by turning him into the traffic instead of away from it; and had to take more action. Being less distracted by the unusual situation; and not having missed the oncoming traffic; I would have just waited to issue the descent clearance.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: ZBW Controller reports being distracted by a UAV holding in his airspace and not noting two aircraft that are head on; in a timely manner. Controller errors exacerbated the problem and separation may have been lost.

Narrative: I was working the radar at Sector 17/18 combined; was talking to both airplanes. I issued the standard crossing clearance to a B757; 'cross 25 miles east of BOS at FL280'. There were a number of other things going on in the area; traffic wise; including a Global Hawk UAV that was holding in airspace on my sector's northern boundary. The supervisors; TMU and military coordinators had been trying to figure out for hours what we were going to do with the UAV because we do not normally work them and have no procedures in place for working them currently. I was distracted by that activity; as well as my regular traffic; including issuing reroutes to two other aircraft; and did not notice that an A380 was head-on with the B757. The two were approximately 1.5-2 minutes from losing separation; and I panicked and told the B757 to start down; no delay through FL340; then turned him 10 left. I realized I had meant to turn him right; so I turned the A380 10 left; also. I then noticed that was not going to be quite enough; so I turned them each another 10 left. I told the B757 to report leaving FL340; then a foreign aircraft asked a question; and I am not sure if I lost separation or not; it was very close. The hit prior to losing separation the B757 was at FL344. By the time the B757 was able to report; he said he was almost through FL330; and they were at 3 miles on my scope. Neither my D-side nor I caught it until it would have been too late; but the B757 had not started descending. Had I taken half a second longer to assess the situation; I would have just told the B757 to maintain FL360 until I saw him clear of the traffic. I then made the situation worse by turning him into the traffic instead of away from it; and had to take more action. Being less distracted by the unusual situation; and not having missed the oncoming traffic; I would have just waited to issue the descent clearance.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site 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.