Narrative:

I was working the arrival sector when a supervisor came over to me and said that a B757 was coming as a medical emergency. He said that he was going to be coming in during a heavy rush and we'll wait and see which runway we wanted to put him on. After several minutes; a tmc came over and told me that even though we were going to be busy; he wanted me to put this aircraft on the opposite parallel runway with reference to the side he was arriving from. I verified that he wanted me to cross all my heavy traffic flow with the emergency aircraft; he said yes. On this day there happened to be a tail wind which was estimated to be 340 at 55 KTS. In our landing configuration; south and west; the difficulty level of attaining descent; sequencing and reaching a speed of 210 KTS within a 25 mile stretch is highly difficult; but adding a fast emergency who is higher than crossing traffic but must be lower and is essentially being forced against the grain of traffic tremendously complicates the scenario. In my opinion this was the most difficult and the most dangerous scenario that management could devise. As he was coming in; I also wanted to verify that the tmc wanted me to leave him fast; they said yes. I also told the other supervisor; who was acting as a coordinator between positions; to let the final controller know who the emergency was and to let him/her know that the aircraft is coming fast as per the tmc. Apparently; they not only opted not to break out other traffic landing this runway but didn't slow the emergency in time before separation was lost. While this was going on; and after; I continued to voice my displeasure with this decision and hope that a result of this unnecessary situation will be a change in policy at this facility. Recommendation; I have several recommendations for the particular event. First; the aircraft was coming in very fast and from a feeder fix in which there was no other traffic in front of him. So with him being fast and essentially number 1 to the airport; leave him fast and to the runway closest to him. Instead of crossing all the arrivals on his left; diving him under them in order to take him to the parallel. Another option could have been taking him to a converging runway. Since he was coming from the northwest; and we were landing south and west; we could have easily brought him in fast and direct to the airport and coordinated him to us that runway. This option would have been the most beneficial runway and wouldn't have inconvenienced any of the heavier arrival runways. Another option was to leave out the traffic manager when it comes to runways assignments and let air traffic controllers do the controlling.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: TRACON Controller described a confused runway assignment event involving an inbound emergency aircraft; the reporter noting runway assignments should be handled by operational personnel without Traffic Management involvement.

Narrative: I was working the arrival sector when a Supervisor came over to me and said that a B757 was coming as a medical emergency. He said that he was going to be coming in during a heavy rush and we'll wait and see which runway we wanted to put him on. After several minutes; a TMC came over and told me that even though we were going to be busy; he wanted me to put this aircraft on the opposite parallel runway with reference to the side he was arriving from. I verified that he wanted me to cross all my heavy traffic flow with the emergency aircraft; he said yes. On this day there happened to be a tail wind which was estimated to be 340 at 55 KTS. In our landing configuration; south and west; the difficulty level of attaining descent; sequencing and reaching a speed of 210 KTS within a 25 mile stretch is highly difficult; but adding a fast emergency who is higher than crossing traffic but must be lower and is essentially being forced against the grain of traffic tremendously complicates the scenario. In my opinion this was the most difficult and the most dangerous scenario that management could devise. As he was coming in; I also wanted to verify that the TMC wanted me to leave him fast; they said yes. I also told the other Supervisor; who was acting as a coordinator between positions; to let the Final Controller know who the emergency was and to let him/her know that the aircraft is coming fast as per the TMC. Apparently; they not only opted not to break out other traffic landing this runway but didn't slow the emergency in time before separation was lost. While this was going on; and after; I continued to voice my displeasure with this decision and hope that a result of this unnecessary situation will be a change in policy at this facility. Recommendation; I have several recommendations for the particular event. First; the aircraft was coming in very fast and from a feeder fix in which there was no other traffic in front of him. So with him being fast and essentially number 1 to the airport; leave him fast and to the runway closest to him. Instead of crossing all the arrivals on his left; diving him under them in order to take him to the parallel. Another option could have been taking him to a converging runway. Since he was coming from the northwest; and we were landing south and west; we could have easily brought him in fast and direct to the airport and coordinated him to us that runway. This option would have been the most beneficial runway and wouldn't have inconvenienced any of the heavier arrival runways. Another option was to leave out the Traffic Manager when it comes to runways assignments and let Air Traffic Controllers do the controlling.

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.