Narrative:

On the midshift at ZDC; ZTL went completely 'black hole'. There were no landlines or frequencies that could be used by controllers or aircraft to contact ZTL. ZTL couldn't even call us to tell us they weren't taking any more aircraft into their airspace. They just stopped taking and making hand-offs. Aircraft in ZTL airspace just started calling any facility frequency they could think of to communicate with ATC. Controllers put several high altitude aircraft that called them - on my frequency at ZDC because they didn't know what else to do with them except put them on 'some' center frequency for help. I had an aircraft call that was in ZTL airspace 'direct atl to land at FL360'. I told him it appeared ZTL had lost everything. He asked me for some routing out of ZTL; like to charleston as an alternate; but I told him there was no legal clearance I could give him; non-radar or otherwise; without getting permission from ZTL first; and that there was no way to do that at present. My radar cannot see that far west. I looked up the frequency for atl on one of the approach plates for atl; and told the aircraft to try to call them since he was getting so close to the airport. I don't know what ever became of the aircraft. Another aircraft called me and said they were going northeast bound. They were clearly still in ZTL airspace by the position report; but were going to be coming into ZDC airspace eventually; so I gave the aircraft the area 1 high altitude frequency. Another aircraft called with a similar position and direction of flight going to iad. I also put them on another frequency for eventual radar identification. An air carrier flight off clt went tower enroute through gso airspace and ended up being handed off manually to R22 with no flight plan information going to one of the washington metro airports. Area 1 had 2 controllers plugged-in and was forced to 'present position' hold numerous aircraft that should have been going into ZTL airspace because they couldn't make any contact with ZTL. They were also starting tracks and radar identifying aircraft that were exiting ZTL airspace; as were we all. I overheard a ZTL controller saying that they were slowly getting their radar data back; and that uret flight plan data was unreliable. This leads me to believe that in addition to having no landlines or frequencies; that ZTL had no radar capabilities either. The supervisor came around to my area and said something to the effect of - when ZTL tried to restart; everything went down; darc; host; eram; and power? I don't know; what I do know is that hundreds of square miles of class a airspace that is usually under ZTL control - was uncontrolled airspace with dozens of aircraft in it for the better part of an hour.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: ZDC Controller described the complete ATC equipment failure of ZTL; resulting in a less than coordinated contingency plan operation; noting multiple IFR aircraft were uncontrolled for over an hour.

Narrative: On the midshift at ZDC; ZTL went completely 'Black Hole'. There were no landlines or frequencies that could be used by controllers or aircraft to contact ZTL. ZTL couldn't even call us to tell us they weren't taking any more aircraft into their airspace. They just stopped taking and making hand-offs. Aircraft in ZTL airspace just started calling any facility frequency they could think of to communicate with ATC. Controllers put several high altitude aircraft that called them - on my frequency at ZDC because they didn't know what else to do with them except put them on 'some' center frequency for help. I had an aircraft call that was in ZTL airspace 'direct ATL to land at FL360'. I told him it appeared ZTL had lost everything. He asked me for some routing out of ZTL; like to Charleston as an alternate; but I told him there was no legal clearance I could give him; non-radar or otherwise; without getting permission from ZTL first; and that there was no way to do that at present. My RADAR cannot see that far west. I looked up the frequency for ATL on one of the approach plates for ATL; and told the aircraft to try to call them since he was getting so close to the airport. I don't know what ever became of the aircraft. Another aircraft called me and said they were going northeast bound. They were clearly still in ZTL airspace by the position report; but were going to be coming into ZDC airspace eventually; so I gave the aircraft the Area 1 high altitude frequency. Another aircraft called with a similar position and direction of flight going to IAD. I also put them on another frequency for eventual RADAR identification. An air carrier flight off CLT went Tower enroute through GSO airspace and ended up being handed off manually to R22 with no flight plan information going to one of the Washington metro airports. Area 1 had 2 controllers plugged-in and was forced to 'present position' hold numerous aircraft that should have been going into ZTL airspace because they couldn't make any contact with ZTL. They were also starting tracks and RADAR identifying aircraft that were exiting ZTL airspace; as were we all. I overheard a ZTL Controller saying that they were slowly getting their RADAR data back; and that URET flight plan data was unreliable. This leads me to believe that in addition to having no landlines or frequencies; that ZTL had no RADAR capabilities either. The supervisor came around to my area and said something to the effect of - when ZTL tried to restart; everything went down; DARC; HOST; ERAM; and power? I don't know; what I do know is that hundreds of square miles of Class A airspace that is usually under ZTL control - was uncontrolled airspace with dozens of aircraft in it for the better part of an hour.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 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.