Narrative:

An aircraft squawking XXXX (the assigned code for aircraft X) was seen north of our airspace boundary by the controller working position prior to my arrival. He terminated control of this tag as it was erroneously created; and informed me of this during the relief briefing; indicating that I would most likely need to RF [ARTS force] the tag in the fdio [flight data input/output] when the correct aircraft departed. [Approximately 25 minutes later] the aircraft called for his clearance [route clearance] and was issued this while in flight. As our fdio reported that the aircraft was not my control I called chicago center otm sector (C56) for a manual handoff. The controller on the other end of the line informed me that he had no information about the aircraft and that we would 'have to do something about it' and then hung up the line without accepting radar on the aircraft. As a result I had to quickly coordinate with dsm TRACON to effect a radar handoff to them so the plane could continue his flight; while delaying his climb to level off at 100; as well as calling ZMP sector 36 to attempt to have them dm [departure message] the aircraft and amend the flight plan so dsm could control the tag. They called back shortly to inform me that otm had taken control of the aircraft and thus they were unable to edit his plan. The dsm controller confirmed this after I called to ask them about it.the problem was the beacon code assignment being shared between two separate host computers (ZMP; ZAU) and with our facility being between the two; this happens more often than anyone would prefer. Changing the way the computers communicate with one another seems like a bit of an undertaking for the agency but this is not the first or likely last occurrence of an incident like this. The controller refusing to take the handoff is another issue for which I feel a chicago center manager would have a more appropriate answer.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: ALO Controller reported being unable to hand off an aircraft due to an erroneous beacon code between separate HOST computers.

Narrative: An aircraft squawking XXXX (the assigned code for Aircraft X) was seen north of our airspace boundary by the controller working position prior to my arrival. He terminated control of this tag as it was erroneously created; and informed me of this during the relief briefing; indicating that I would most likely need to RF [ARTS Force] the tag in the FDIO [Flight Data Input/Output] when the correct aircraft departed. [Approximately 25 minutes later] the aircraft called for his CLRNC [route clearance] and was issued this while in flight. As our FDIO reported that the aircraft was not my control I called Chicago Center OTM sector (C56) for a manual handoff. The controller on the other end of the line informed me that he had no information about the aircraft and that we would 'have to do something about it' and then hung up the line without accepting radar on the aircraft. As a result I had to quickly coordinate with DSM TRACON to effect a radar handoff to them so the plane could continue his flight; while delaying his climb to level off at 100; as well as calling ZMP sector 36 to attempt to have them DM [Departure Message] the aircraft and amend the flight plan so DSM could control the tag. They called back shortly to inform me that OTM had taken control of the aircraft and thus they were unable to edit his plan. The DSM controller confirmed this after I called to ask them about it.The problem was the beacon code assignment being shared between two separate host computers (ZMP; ZAU) and with our facility being between the two; this happens more often than anyone would prefer. Changing the way the computers communicate with one another seems like a bit of an undertaking for the agency but this is not the first or likely last occurrence of an incident like this. The controller refusing to take the handoff is another issue for which I feel a Chicago Center manager would have a more appropriate answer.

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.