Ken Menconi – Southwest Area – September 2021

During the swing shift on September 1, 2021, Ken Menconi was working the Bradford radar position with on-the-job training at the radar associate position.  Ken observed a Mode-C Intruder in the LOWLI airspace, heading toward his airspace at FL290. Below is Ken’s recollection of the event. 

I made a comment to the training team about the Mode-C Intruder and they did a flight plan readout on the code the aircraft was squawking. The result was a (Southwest) SWA299 from KMDW (Midway) to KOMA (Omaha), which did not make sense with this target on an Easterly direction of flight. I asked the D-side to make a call and inquire about the aircraft and they said LOWLI took a manual handoff from ZMP (Minneapolis Center) and were having trouble with the flight plan and track of the aircraft in our computer, but the identity of the target was SWA299. 

A few moments later, the West Area supervisor approached me at Bradford, alerting me to the Mode-C Intruder target. He explained after many attempts, they were unable to start a track on SWA299 and asking for our help getting a flight plan in the system for SWA299, a flight from KOMA to KMDW. After doing my own flight plan readout on SWA299, the only SWA299 flight plan found was an outbound from KMDW to KOMA and Roberts 45 had track control. It was apparent to me the flight plan had been altered somehow because a normally West departure ended up being worked out the South departures which somehow interrupted the usual flight plan lifecycle. SWA299 was showing on an active, non-basis flight plan, from KMDW to KOMA, which meant a /OK would be necessary to start a track.  At the time, I thought perhaps an outbound SWA299 and inbound SWA299 could have overlapped and were flying at the same time in ZAU, perhaps because of a delay. Not wanting to /OK force a track on the Mode C Intruder SWA299, which would drop the track on the potential other SWA299 in flight in ZAU, I determined a new flight plan with a new call sign would be the easiest, quickest and safest way to resolve the issue.

I called LOWLI to verify information about the flight, including origin, destination, route of flight, aircraft type and equipment suffix.  I started a track on the Mode-C Intruder with the new call sign SWA299A. I entered a VP flight plan for the B737/L going to KMDW and a QZ message of FL240 to reflect the aircraft as IFR and the current assigned altitude.  This generated the new squawk code for the flight. I then finished the abbreviated flight plan with a field 10 amendment to show KOMA as the departure airport and a 6, 7, 10 to input the route: KAMBL.ENDEE6.KMDW. I also added a Field 11 remark stating the original call sign was SWA299 and was changed to SWA299A due to the automation issue. When we communicated with SWA299, we told them due to a glitch in the flight plan, the flight would now be known as SWA299A and gave them the new squawk and instructed them to IDENT to ensure positive radar contact. After verifying the other details of the flight, SWA299A was handed off to Burlington 55. The West area supervisor stayed in the SW area to learn how we were resolving the issue. After it was done, the West OS asked if I would come to the West area to explain what I did so they could rectify this type of situation if it comes up again, to which I was happy to accommodate. 

Great teamwork reaching out and helping controllers in a different area work through technical procedures that they were unfamiliar and struggling with. Awesome work, Ken!