Enroute controller described a confused emergency operation when the supervisor was issuing instruct...

Narrative:

I [handled] an emergency going direct to the airport from the west. When I sat down at the position the relieving controller told me that everything had been passed on to the TRACON and it was all ok. When the plane was 20-30 miles from the TRACON boundary the supervisor told me that I needed to clear him direct to the airport for the approach; which is what the pilot requested. I said that it would put the aircraft 50 miles out of the way and not a good thing for a plane with one engine. I told the pilot what they wanted me to do and said I'd try to get them pointed in the right direction; but not too far out of the way. I called the TRACON and asked if they had been told the same and they said yes. I told them I thought that it was too far out of the way and approval requested a heading; which they approved. I turned the plane left and when the TRACON took the hand off I gave the pilot the frequency change. While this is going on; the supervisor is telling me the plane needs to go a different direction. After I shipped the plane I told the supervisor what I did and everything had been taken care of. Recommendation; supervisors should know what is going on instead of just blindly doing what others say. A good supervisor would not have said to turn an airplane with one engine out of the way.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Enroute Controller described a confused emergency operation when the Supervisor was issuing instructions to the reporter that were counter intuitive to handling the subject type of emergency.

Narrative: I [handled] an emergency going direct to the airport from the west. When I sat down at the position the relieving Controller told me that everything had been passed on to the TRACON and it was all ok. When the plane was 20-30 miles from the TRACON boundary the Supervisor told me that I needed to clear him direct to the airport for the approach; which is what the pilot requested. I said that it would put the aircraft 50 miles out of the way and not a good thing for a plane with one engine. I told the Pilot what they wanted me to do and said I'd try to get them pointed in the right direction; but not too far out of the way. I called the TRACON and asked if they had been told the same and they said yes. I told them I thought that it was too far out of the way and approval requested a heading; which they approved. I turned the plane left and when the TRACON took the hand off I gave the Pilot the frequency change. While this is going on; the Supervisor is telling me the plane needs to go a different direction. After I shipped the plane I told the Supervisor what I did and everything had been taken care of. Recommendation; Supervisors should know what is going on instead of just blindly doing what others say. A good supervisor would not have said to turn an airplane with one engine out of the way.

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.

Attributes
ACN	925529
Time
Date	201012
Local Time Of Day	1801-2400
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.ARTCC
State Reference	US
Environment
Light	Night
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	B757 Undifferentiated or Other Model
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Descent
Route In Use	Vectors
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Qualification	Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Events
Anomaly	Aircraft Equipment Problem Critical

Enroute controller described a confused emergency operation when the supervisor was issuing instructions to the reporter that were counter intuitive to handling the subject type of emergency.