Enroute controller described an airspace infraction after unknowingly disabling the automatic hand o...

Narrative:

Aircraft X was level flight; FL320; direct sso VORTAC. A radar associate plugged in and noticed that aircraft X was direct sso; routing through white sands missle range. He took data block back; flashing to A63; updated route to ewm sso; then re-flashed to A63. I told him that wsmr was open at and above FL310; took data block back; updated route back to direct sso. Aircraft was close to A63 boundary and needed to process so I decided to wait a couple of minutes before flashing data block to A63 so the hand off would not fail. Radar associate and I were distracted by another situation on opposite end of sector. Both involved aircraft were level flight FL390 and were very much in conflict. It took a while to coordinate between our sector and two other ZZZ sectors to insure separation between these two aircraft. When I looked back to aircraft X; the aircraft had entered ZZZ2 sector A63 without a hand off. Radar associate called A63 and they took radar on aircraft X. When I took data block back on aircraft X; it disabled the auto-hand off function. I would recommend making the auto-hand off inhibit function manual only by having to physically having to inhibit auto-hand off.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Enroute Controller described an airspace infraction after unknowingly disabling the automatic hand off feature when reclaiming the data block after the initial hand off attempt.

Narrative: Aircraft X was level flight; FL320; direct SSO VORTAC. A RADAR associate plugged in and noticed that Aircraft X was direct SSO; routing through White Sands Missle Range. He took Data Block back; flashing to A63; updated route to EWM SSO; then re-flashed to A63. I told him that WSMR was open at and above FL310; took Data Block back; updated route back to direct SSO. Aircraft was close to A63 boundary and needed to process so I decided to wait a couple of minutes before flashing Data Block to A63 so the hand off would not fail. Radar Associate and I were distracted by another situation on opposite end of sector. Both involved aircraft were level flight FL390 and were very much in conflict. It took a while to coordinate between our sector and two other ZZZ sectors to insure separation between these two aircraft. When I looked back to Aircraft X; the aircraft had entered ZZZ2 sector A63 without a hand off. RADAR associate called A63 and they took RADAR on Aircraft X. When I took Data Block back on Aircraft X; it disabled the auto-hand off function. I would recommend making the auto-hand off inhibit function manual only by having to physically having to inhibit auto-hand off.

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	967336
Time
Date	201108
Local Time Of Day	1201-1800
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.ARTCC
State Reference	US
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	MD-83
Flight Phase	Cruise
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	Enroute
Qualification	Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Events
Anomaly	ATC Issue All Types Airspace Violation All Types Conflict Airborne Conflict Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy

Enroute controller described an airspace infraction after unknowingly disabling the automatic hand off feature when reclaiming the data block after the initial hand off attempt.