Narrative:

I was conducting training on combined radar positions. Traffic wasn't too complex; but my trainee had been reaching a saturation level and was slowing down. Local control sent down a strip off runway 26L on a 230 heading; which was directly at an overflight we had at 4;000. The overflight was in a grey area between tower's and tracons airspace boundaries and just cancelled IFR to continue VFR. Tower called down and said the departure had an issue and cancelled takeoff and wasn't going out anymore. Aircraft X calls up from the south and requests runway 35. He is tagged up accordingly and on final when tower calls to request an opposite direction departure off runway 17. The coordination wasn't very clear. He said he was requesting two things; an opposite direction departure (odo); and a 230 heading to miss an overflight we had. Then; he corrected himself and said 130 heading. My trainee and I did not hear the 130 heading; and we approved the 230 heading; thinking he would miss the overflight. However; we weren't sure tower was aware of traffic inbound to runway 35 and weren't sure who's responsibility it was to make sure our arrival wasn't 10 miles from the airport before the departure tags up. My trainee decided to break N07m off the approach and bring him to runway 26L. I agreed with this after seeing the strip that said '230' heading. I later found out this was the old strip; and not the current runway 17 departure strip. Aircraft X and aircraft Y came within 700 feet and 3 miles from one another and did not have each other in sight. Aircraft Y leveled at 4;000 feet and was lost in frequency when tower called to say 'your control'. This was a bad time for him to not be on frequency. I later found out the aircraft Y never had a maintenance delay; this was the tower trying to scare TRACON because they felt we shouldn't have been 10 miles from the field at 4;000 feet with an overflight.our odo order doesn't communicate very well whose responsibility it is to ensure the 10 miles between an arrival the odo departure. This needs to be looked at.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A Tower Controller reported a departure was launched on a heading toward arrival traffic due to miscommunication between the Tower and TRACON.

Narrative: I was conducting training on combined radar positions. Traffic wasn't too complex; but my trainee had been reaching a saturation level and was slowing down. Local Control sent down a strip off Runway 26L on a 230 heading; which was directly at an overflight we had at 4;000. The overflight was in a grey area between Tower's and TRACONS airspace boundaries and just cancelled IFR to continue VFR. Tower called down and said the departure had an issue and cancelled takeoff and wasn't going out anymore. Aircraft X calls up from the south and requests Runway 35. He is tagged up accordingly and on final when tower calls to request an opposite direction departure off Runway 17. The coordination wasn't very clear. He said he was requesting two things; an Opposite Direction Departure (ODO); and a 230 heading to miss an overflight we had. Then; he corrected himself and said 130 heading. My trainee and I did not hear the 130 heading; and we approved the 230 heading; thinking he would miss the overflight. However; we weren't sure Tower was aware of traffic inbound to Runway 35 and weren't sure who's responsibility it was to make sure our arrival wasn't 10 miles from the airport before the departure tags up. My trainee decided to break N07m off the approach and bring him to Runway 26L. I agreed with this after seeing the strip that said '230' heading. I later found out this was the OLD strip; and not the current Runway 17 departure strip. Aircraft X and Aircraft Y came within 700 feet and 3 miles from one another and did not have each other in sight. Aircraft Y leveled at 4;000 feet and was lost in frequency when tower called to say 'your control'. This was a bad time for him to not be on frequency. I later found out the Aircraft Y never had a maintenance delay; this was the Tower trying to scare TRACON because they felt we shouldn't have been 10 miles from the field at 4;000 feet with an overflight.Our ODO order doesn't communicate very well whose responsibility it is to ensure the 10 miles between an arrival the ODO departure. This needs to be looked at.

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.