Narrative:

A law enforcement helicopter departed the airport and flew eastbound 13 minutes prior to event. I immediately asked him if he knew of the impending fly-by at the local stadium at the top of the hour and he stated; that he was going to the east side of the city; the stadium is located on the west side; and that 'he would stay out of their way.' I happened to work this same scenario last year; police helicopter providing security over city and a military fly-by over the stadium with no incident. The subject helicopter actually did not fly to where he stated; but was just on the edge of the stadium. When the fly-by commenced I informed the helicopter of the traffic and he stated he had them in sight. I did not state 'maintain visual separation' as I thought he was at his requested location of 'east of the city;' which would have been sufficient separation. The F-15s did not require any evasive action; but they were preoccupied looking for helicopter traffic that was issued by the radar controller who was working the F-15s. Due to the nature of this event top facility management had a meeting with all controllers and supervisors involved and agreed that the facility as a whole was too lax in such a high profile event; fly-by with F-15s. I certainly fell into this trap as I worked this scenario last year with no incident and 'assumed' all parties knew of each others position; but that was not the case. Recommendation; in our meeting it was decided that we need to sterilize any fly-by area to avoid any potential conflict. All controllers should not assume that all parties are aware of what each other is doing.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Tower Controller described a loss of separation event when failing to instruct a police helicopter to 'maintain visual separation' with a stadium fly-by flight; the Controller noted the helicopter was at other than his reported location.

Narrative: A law enforcement helicopter departed the airport and flew eastbound 13 minutes prior to event. I immediately asked him if he knew of the impending fly-by at the local stadium at the top of the hour and he stated; that he was going to the east side of the city; the stadium is located on the west side; and that 'he would stay out of their way.' I happened to work this same scenario last year; police helicopter providing security over city and a military fly-by over the stadium with no incident. The subject helicopter actually did not fly to where he stated; but was just on the edge of the stadium. When the fly-by commenced I informed the helicopter of the traffic and he stated he had them in sight. I did not state 'maintain visual separation' as I thought he was at his requested location of 'east of the city;' which would have been sufficient separation. The F-15s did not require any evasive action; but they were preoccupied looking for helicopter traffic that was issued by the RADAR Controller who was working the F-15s. Due to the nature of this event top facility management had a meeting with all controllers and supervisors involved and agreed that the facility as a whole was too lax in such a high profile event; fly-by with F-15s. I certainly fell into this trap as I worked this scenario last year with no incident and 'assumed' all parties knew of each others position; but that was not the case. Recommendation; in our meeting it was decided that we need to sterilize any fly-by area to avoid any potential conflict. All controllers should not assume that all parties are aware of what each other is doing.

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.