Narrative:

I was working the radar at sector yy. My d-side was closing up and relieving me from ryy. We only had a flight of 6 F16's. There was a solid line of weather east to west in my sector. The military flight was at FL270 and asked for tops reports. I told him I did not have any. They requested FL390 neg. Rvsm. There was no traffic so I climbed them to FL390. The flight declared minimum fuel. At the end of my briefing the flight requested a break up. He wanted to split with two flights due to weather. Aircraft X was told to maintain FL360 and aircraft Y was told to maintain FL370. We were able to get 3 xyz aircraft tracks up but only were able to tag up 2 xyz aircraft tracks due to additional requests and call sign mix ups. They started to refer to themselves as aircraft Y and aircraft Z. I told aircraft Y radar contact over van. Aircraft Z declared an emergency for fuel and proceeded to van without altitude clearance or even a track up. He called the field in sight and said he was setting up for the pattern. A few seconds later he said he was switching to tower frequency. It happened so quickly that there was no track on sector xx; the low sector; and no call as yet either. Aircraft Y also declared a fuel emergency but listened to ATC control. Aircraft X also listened to ATC control. A controller in charge was in charge at the time and it was reported to the controller in charge as soon as the event was over. The xyz aircraft's; after they were broke up; were at least once at less than standard separation. Recommendation; if I ever have fighter flights that want to climb for minimum fuel due to weather; I will ask if it looks like they will need to declare an emergency or need to split up so I can at least start preparing.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Enroute Controller described a confused and probable loss of separation event when a flight of six military fighters requested weather deviation maneuvers; a flight break-up and culminating in fuel emergency declaration/s.

Narrative: I was working the RADAR at Sector YY. My D-Side was closing up and relieving me from RYY. We only had a flight of 6 F16's. There was a solid line of weather East to West in my sector. The military flight was at FL270 and asked for tops reports. I told him I did not have any. They requested FL390 neg. RVSM. There was no traffic so I climbed them to FL390. The flight declared minimum fuel. At the end of my briefing the flight requested a break up. He wanted to split with two flights due to weather. Aircraft X was told to maintain FL360 and Aircraft Y was told to maintain FL370. We were able to get 3 XYZ Aircraft tracks up but only were able to tag up 2 XYZ Aircraft tracks due to additional requests and call sign mix ups. They started to refer to themselves as Aircraft Y and Aircraft Z. I told Aircraft Y RADAR contact over VAN. Aircraft Z declared an emergency for fuel and proceeded to VAN without altitude clearance or even a track up. He called the field in sight and said he was setting up for the pattern. A few seconds later he said he was switching to tower frequency. It happened so quickly that there was no track on Sector XX; the low sector; and no call as yet either. Aircraft Y also declared a fuel emergency but listened to ATC control. Aircraft X also listened to ATC control. A CIC was in charge at the time and it was reported to the CIC as soon as the event was over. The XYZ Aircraft's; after they were broke up; were at least once at less than standard separation. Recommendation; If I ever have Fighter flights that want to climb for minimum fuel due to weather; I will ask if it looks like they will need to declare an emergency or need to split up so I can at least start preparing.

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.