Narrative:

The biggest contributing factor is the scheduled qla radar outage that is happening all this week. We get countless handoffs from sba approach every day. Usually; we get primary and secondary radar coverage below 040; but with qla OTS; most of the targets are appearing between 070 and 090. Aircraft X was level at 100 direct kwang. Sba approach called and said there was a VFR they were attempting to hand off to us. They described him as a slow climber; south east bound; climbing out of 055 for 095 VFR. We told him that we wouldn't pick him up for a while; but we would call when we had radar. Then; we coordinated aircraft X at 100; and gave sba control; as we didn't want to descend aircraft X through the VFR's cruise altitude.as the trainer; while I discussed the merits of this plan with my trainee; I didn't actually expect the VFR to reach 095 before being past aircraft X; and I certainly didn't expect aircraft Y to reach 095 before we were able to pick up a target. Sba took back the flash and coordinated that they had handed off and shipped the VFR to ntd approach as we still were unable to pick up a target. No altitude was coordinated at that time. We should have asked for an updated mode C at that time. Aircraft X asked us is a garbled sentence if we saw that traffic; then cut his sentence short and said never mind; we have him in sight. I asked if there was an aircraft out there; because we were having a radar issue and we were picking up most targets around 080 to 090; but we didn't see any targets near his.he responded that there was an aircraft on his TCAS at 096 and that he had received an RA. I acknowledged; and ensured that any maneuver was complete and that he was level at 100 before we shipped him to sba. Some time during that back and forth; we observed a code pop up 6 miles south of aircraft X's current position; mode C 045. An update later; it jumped to directly behind aircraft X; mode C 095. Flight plan readout on the code showed that is was the VFR from sba. Several updates later; a data block correlated with the target. Recommend some interim procedure or equipment procedure to minimize the effect on active traffic when a major radar site needs maintenance. The current practice of constantly calling for attitude checks (as we lose mode C and primary data before most aircraft descend out of our airspace); hand offs leveling off; and calls for higher put an undue stress on sector 14; sba and ntd; especially since this was a scheduled outage and these issues could have been foreseen.

Related reports:

Google
 

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: ZLA controllers describe situation where the primary radar system for one area is released to maintenance when an aircraft responds to an RA in which they did not have a target on.

Narrative: The biggest contributing factor is the scheduled QLA radar outage that is happening all this week. We get countless handoffs from SBA Approach every day. Usually; we get primary and secondary radar coverage below 040; but with QLA OTS; most of the targets are appearing between 070 and 090. Aircraft X was level at 100 direct KWANG. SBA Approach called and said there was a VFR they were attempting to hand off to us. They described him as a slow climber; south east bound; climbing out of 055 for 095 VFR. We told him that we wouldn't pick him up for a while; but we would call when we had radar. Then; we coordinated Aircraft X at 100; and gave SBA control; as we didn't want to descend Aircraft X through the VFR's cruise altitude.As the trainer; while I discussed the merits of this plan with my trainee; I didn't actually expect the VFR to reach 095 before being past Aircraft X; and I certainly didn't expect Aircraft Y to reach 095 before we were able to pick up a target. SBA took back the flash and coordinated that they had handed off and shipped the VFR to NTD Approach as we still were unable to pick up a target. No altitude was coordinated at that time. We should have asked for an updated Mode C at that time. Aircraft X asked us is a garbled sentence if we saw that traffic; then cut his sentence short and said never mind; we have him in sight. I asked if there was an aircraft out there; because we were having a radar issue and we were picking up most targets around 080 to 090; but we didn't see any targets near his.He responded that there was an aircraft on his TCAS at 096 and that he had received an RA. I acknowledged; and ensured that any maneuver was complete and that he was level at 100 before we shipped him to SBA. Some time during that back and forth; we observed a code pop up 6 miles south of Aircraft X's current position; Mode C 045. An update later; it jumped to directly behind Aircraft X; Mode C 095. Flight plan readout on the code showed that is was the VFR from SBA. Several updates later; a data block correlated with the target. Recommend some interim procedure or equipment procedure to minimize the effect on active traffic when a major radar site needs maintenance. The current practice of constantly calling for attitude checks (as we lose Mode C and primary data before most aircraft descend out of our airspace); hand offs leveling off; and calls for higher put an undue stress on Sector 14; SBA and NTD; especially since this was a scheduled outage and these issues could have been foreseen.

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.