Narrative:

I was the radar controller side with sectors combined at the end of my shift. Aircraft Z was climbing out on the normal departure when I had aircraft X flight and aircraft Y together in a block altitude. I believe the altitude block was 24000 to 27000 feet but I cannot remember at the time of writing this. In my opinion there was no loss of separation between aircraft X and aircraft Y and aircraft Z. It is my opinion that aircraft Z was put at high risk when aircraft Y/aircraft X decided to split from their formation and proceed as two separate flights. I asked one to come up center frequency and ident. When the aircraft split and came up on frequency he was inside another sector's airspace and about 45 miles from his lead aircraft. Formation refueling flights are not approved to leave the formation and when prompted by me to explain why he was 40 miles away from his lead aircraft he advised that they missed their flight lead and had 'trouble' rejoining the formation. This resulted in an airspace violation and a pilot deviation. I had primary targets on; but with the workload and all of the primary target clutter; it was not possible to see that the aircraft had left his flight and was off course by almost 50 miles.when an aircraft loses their flight lead; the aircraft instead of not squawking anything should squawk a code that the FAA has not yet come up with. For example; when an aircraft loses their flight lead they could squawk 7900 or some other code to let ATC know that the aircraft has lost their lead aircraft. This could be useful throughout the NAS. In this example; the aircraft was flying alone and in class a airspace without proper radar identification because this procedure doesn't exist at this time for aircraft to follow.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: ZFW Center Controller reported that an aircraft that was part of an aerial refueling mission departed the formation without a clearance.

Narrative: I was the radar controller side with sectors combined at the end of my shift. Aircraft Z was climbing out on the normal departure when I had Aircraft X flight and Aircraft Y together in a block altitude. I believe the altitude block was 24000 to 27000 feet but I cannot remember at the time of writing this. In my opinion there was no loss of separation between Aircraft X and Aircraft Y and Aircraft Z. It is my opinion that Aircraft Z was put at high risk when Aircraft Y/Aircraft X decided to split from their formation and proceed as two separate flights. I asked one to come up center frequency and ident. When the aircraft split and came up on frequency he was inside another sector's airspace and about 45 miles from his lead aircraft. Formation refueling flights are not approved to leave the formation and when prompted by me to explain why he was 40 miles away from his lead aircraft he advised that they missed their flight lead and had 'trouble' rejoining the formation. This resulted in an airspace violation and a pilot deviation. I had primary targets on; but with the workload and all of the primary target clutter; it was not possible to see that the aircraft had left his flight and was off course by almost 50 miles.When an aircraft loses their flight lead; the aircraft instead of not squawking anything should squawk a code that the FAA has not yet come up with. For example; when an aircraft loses their flight lead they could squawk 7900 or some other code to let ATC know that the aircraft has lost their lead aircraft. This could be useful throughout the NAS. In this example; the aircraft was flying alone and in Class A airspace without proper radar identification because this procedure doesn't exist at this time for aircraft to follow.

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.