Narrative:

I was working sector 46; when the sector 26 controller walked over and pointed to an uncorrelated beacon target at FL280 in sector 23 about 15-20 miles east of my eastern boundary headed west. He advised it was a flight of 2 T-38s that someone had removed strips on; and I should watch out since he would enter my sector. I said; 'point out approved'; and waited for either 23 to correct the situation or coordinate with me in the meantime. They did neither; but called me after the aircraft were now well inside my sector and tried to explain why they couldn't start a track. I had a brief and confused conversation with the 23 controller over it before I finally decided to just fix it myself. I accepted the hand off and about 30 seconds later; the flight checked in and requested to deviate south for weather. I verified that it was a flight of 2 and asked for the destination. The pilot said affirmative; flight of 2; and they were going to dlf. I cleared him to deviate south and when able direct dlf and advise. I put in a vp message with the call sign; and amended the altitude from VFR to FL280. I called up the next sector and coordinated that he was deviating south for dlf and handed him off. This took all of 30 seconds to a minute. I am very concerned about the number of inexperienced controllers and the knowledge and skill level displayed in situations like this lately. Apparently; the whole thing started when a controller west of san antonio mistakenly removed the active flight plan on the flight to tag up a VFR flight using that call sign without verifying why there was already an active flight plan and overriding the eligibility check (/ok). Then the sector 23 controller was apparently unaware of the dropped track; and then didn't know how to handle the situation once it was called to his attention. It was only the experience of the sector 26 controller and myself that probably kept the situation from getting worse and in fact; rectified it in a matter of a minute. Recommendation; the training program at ZHU is completely inadequate; and it is starting to bear rotten fruit. There are cpcs working traffic that have no idea how to handle certain situations; to include keying in flight plans and other basic functions. Situational awareness; focus and duty priorities are lacking because they have been rushed through training due to the agency's complete ignorance of the coming retirement wave they knew was coming years in advance. In addition; functional training is a disaster and should be eliminated post haste and ZHU returned to a sane; en route training program.

Related reports:

Google
 

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: ZHU Controller described an absent data block event claiming prior controllers first erred in removing an active data block and then failed to update the aircraft information; all identified as poor training administration.

Narrative: I was working Sector 46; when the Sector 26 Controller walked over and pointed to an uncorrelated beacon target at FL280 in Sector 23 about 15-20 miles east of my eastern boundary headed west. He advised it was a flight of 2 T-38s that someone had removed strips on; and I should watch out since he would enter my sector. I said; 'Point out approved'; and waited for either 23 to correct the situation or coordinate with me in the meantime. They did neither; but called me after the aircraft were now well inside my sector and tried to explain why they couldn't start a track. I had a brief and confused conversation with the 23 Controller over it before I finally decided to just fix it myself. I accepted the hand off and about 30 seconds later; the flight checked in and requested to deviate south for weather. I verified that it was a flight of 2 and asked for the destination. The pilot said affirmative; flight of 2; and they were going to DLF. I cleared him to deviate south and when able direct DLF and advise. I put in a VP message with the call sign; and amended the altitude from VFR to FL280. I called up the next sector and coordinated that he was deviating south for DLF and handed him off. This took all of 30 seconds to a minute. I am very concerned about the number of inexperienced controllers and the knowledge and skill level displayed in situations like this lately. Apparently; the whole thing started when a Controller west of San Antonio mistakenly removed the active flight plan on the flight to tag up a VFR flight using that call sign without verifying why there was already an active flight plan and overriding the eligibility check (/OK). Then the Sector 23 Controller was apparently unaware of the dropped track; and then didn't know how to handle the situation once it was called to his attention. It was only the experience of the Sector 26 Controller and myself that probably kept the situation from getting worse and in fact; rectified it in a matter of a minute. Recommendation; the training program at ZHU is completely inadequate; and it is starting to bear rotten fruit. There are CPCs working traffic that have no idea how to handle certain situations; to include keying in flight plans and other basic functions. Situational awareness; focus and duty priorities are lacking because they have been rushed through training due to the Agency's complete ignorance of the coming retirement wave they knew was coming years in advance. In addition; functional training is a disaster and should be eliminated post haste and ZHU returned to a sane; EN ROUTE training program.

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.