Southern California TRACON (SCT) Evac

[av8boy]

Forgive me if someone else has already posted on this subject. Human interest story of sorts…

Wildfires in Southern California have been cooking for some time and a Santa Ana condition (hot, dry, high wind out of the northeast) has made these fires a real threat to structures and the humans in them. Yesterday morning a fire forced the evacuation of the Southern California TRACON in San Diego... an "ATC Zero" declaration.

Southern California TRACON (SoCal TRACON/SCT) is a consolidated FAA approach control facility. Before this facility was built, approach control services in Southern California were provided by controllers in five discreet physical TRACONS located at the Los Angeles airport, Ontario airport, Burbank airport, San Diego's Miramar Marine Corps Air Station (formerly Naval Air Station) (San Diego Approach), and the El Toro MCAS in Irvine (Coast Approach), providing IFR service for 29 airports. SCT is located roughly one mile northeast of the approach end of 24R at Miramar.

From the NATCA (ATC Union) website for SCT:

SoCal TRACON, the busiest approach control in the world, provides radar air traffic approach control services to all arriving and departing aircraft for most airports in southern California. Airports receiving SCT services include Burbank Airport, John Wayne Airport, Los Angeles International Airport, Long Beach Airport, March AFB, Miramar MCAS, North Island NAS, Ontario Airport, San Diego International Airport, Van Nuys Airport and many more airports that service general aviation. SCT's airspace covers an area from 20 miles north of Burbank to the US/Mexican border and from San Bernardino to Santa Catalina Island.

Here’s the ATCSCC advisory for the evac:

ATCSCC ADVZY 039 DCC 10/26/2003 SCT ATC ZERO UPDATE_FYI
MESSAGE:
DUE TO WILDFIRES IN THE VICINITY AND APPROACHING SCT, THE TRACON HAS
BEEN EVACUATED AND DECLARED ATC ZERO. SCT CONTINGENCY PLANS ARE IN
PLACE AND ZLA HAS ASSUMED RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE AIRSPACE. PRIORITY
IS BEING GIVEN TO AIRBORNE AND DIVERTED FLIGHTS. GROUND STOPS ARE IN
PLACE FOR LAX/LGB/BUR/ONT/SNA/SAN DUE TO VOLUME AND BACKLOG
ASSOCIATED WITH THE REDUCED AAR'S/ADR'S. OPERATIONS WILL CONTINUE AS
ABLE TO THE AIRPORTS WITH REDUCED RATES. THE SPT BRIDGE IS OPEN
UTILIZING NORMAL NUMBERS AND PASS CODES. THE STATUS OF SCT AND
INITIATIVES WILL BE BRIEFED AND UPDATED WHEN NEW INFORMATION BECOMES
AVAILABLE. EXPECT GROUND DELAY PROGRAMS AND OTHER TMI'S TO BE
ISSUED FROM THE GROUND STOPS, WITH REDUCED AAR'S, TO HANDLE
AIRPORTS IMPACTED BY THE SCT SITUATION.

EFFECTIVE TIME:
261815 - 262259
SIGNATURE:
03/10/26 18:15


Like the message says, ZLA (Los Angles Center in Palmdale, California, 140 miles northwest of San Diego/45 miles northeast of LAX) took over for the TRACON while it was down. However, you’ve GOTTA know that this is going to mean delays (no offense to my ARTCC brethren, but admittedly this isn’t your long suit….). On top of all of this, Just before the evac LAX wx forced a ground stop of CatI and CatII arrivals and the SoCal wx continues to fluctuate.

Freaking nightmare.

Dave
:ooh:

[newarksmells]

Zero Visibility: 3 miles from San Diego period. Bad enough to move the football game tonight 500 miles to the East. The Football stadium in San Diego is now used as a triage / Red Cross centre...

Delays and cancellations since this past weekend run into the thousands... and L.A is even worse off than San Diego...just posting what I know firsthand.

Just Brutal Conditions;

Newarksmells

[DC Meatloaf]

Satellite photo is pretty impressive.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/Archive/Oct2003/California.TMOA2003299.jpg

[edit: found a better version]

[West Coast]

Actually San Diego is worse off. The largest fire is in San Diego. Collectively in Southern California 400,000 acres have burned, about half the size of the state of Rhode Island. At last count 1100 homes destroyed. It made it about 1&1/2 miles from my house. Had the cars all packed up and ready to go. Amazing the clarity you have as to what's really important when all your worldly possessions have to fit in two cars. Pictures and paperwork filled both of them. The threat to downtown is somewhat abated. I drove by SOCAL Tracon a few hours ago as I surveyed the damage. Simply amazing that a fire started by a hunter out in the boonies could make it all the way to the middle of the city, 20 miles at a minimum. SCT seems to be out of danger to my untrained eye, mainly because there isn't a whole lot more fuel in the area to feed on.
Defense mechanisms are something to see. Wife bought a painting a few days ago. As the fire made its closest approach to our neighborhood she was concerned about me hanging it over the mantle at that very moment. Re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic came to mind.

[WestWind1950]

hi West Coast!

my parents live in the middle of El Cajon and keep me posted. Even THEY are prepared to evacuate!! My dad sent a map he scanned out of the newspaper... I couldn't believe how close it's gotten!! It's unbelievable!
I also check the homepages of the local TV channels....

Keeping you all in my mind and heart!!

Westy

[FWA NATCA]

The SoCal (SCT) re-opened yesterday, NATCA members stated that the building received no fire damage, and that the air in side the building was filtered to remove any smoke odors.

It is interesting to note that the contingenticy plans lacked adequate procedures to handle this problem.

Mike
NATCA FWA

[av8boy]

Mike,

Could you be a little more specific regarding, "...contingenticy plans lacked adequate procedures to handle this problem?"

Honestly, I'm not taking a shot at you or your comment here. I'm just curious about where you see this falling apart. It seems to me that the most fundamental contingency plan is that which has the Center taking over for the TRACON in the event the TRACON can't perform for some reason (fire, earthquake, terrorist attack, nuke, etc). As I recall, this goes the other way as well, with the TRACONs taking over for the Centers in the event something nasty happens to the nice en route folks (once we stop throwing up and the screaming and wailing subsides to a point where we can again hear stuff on freq...). Granted, not efficient and CERTAINLY not fun, but a contingency plan with an arguably adequate procedure for handling the problem, no?.

Perhaps you are talking about making the call to go to ATC0 based on the countryside being ablaze? If not specifically addressed, isn't this in the catch-all "if we have to evacuate for any other reason, last one out turn off the lights and unplug the coffee pot?" Or is that the problem--there was no specific wildfire-related procedure? Or are you just talking about the smoke-eaters in the building?

Also (as an aside, actually), do you happen to know the total time that SCT was OTS?

Again, I'm not being an apologist for anyone here, nor am I taking issue with what you said. Just looking for some more info on your point.

Thanks,

Dave

[FWA NATCA]

AV8Boy,

The closing of SCT impacted a huge area of airspace because SCT is a consolidated approach control (for those that aren't aware, they combined four or five approach controls under one roof).

As for contingency, yes they closed SCT, and the center took over the airspace, BUT, enroute controllers are not well adapted to handling terminal traffic (vectoring for approaches, issue large numbers of IFR clearances, etc.), and enroute radar rotates (and updates) slower than terminal radar making vectoring to finals more challenging. In addition enroute radar maps Do Not have finals displayed making vectoring even more fun.

My En Route bretheran did a fine job, so I'm not faulting them.

A better plan would had included approach controllers going to the centers to work terminal traffic, having the ability to display terminal maps, and having the ability to utilize terminal frequencies. The plan also needs to include having terminal controllers sitting down for a few days each year to be familiar with the different scopes, and key boards.

Approach Controls can easily take over en route airspace as long as we have the bodies on hand to spin up the extra scopes and if we get the flight plan information so that we don't have to waste time hand writting everything.

Management treats the SCT and or an en route facility closure/failure as a rare event, but when it happens they are always caught with their pants down around their knees.

Granted with SCT they had time to shut down airports and airspace, but even with this there were major delays encountered because the contingencies weren't adequate.

Mike
NATCA FWA

[Scott Voigt]

Mike;

Some of us in the Enroute environment do work terminal areas <G>, so we do know how to vector to final. One issue is that for many of the effected airports, that final is not depicted. As to the issue of bringing a LOT of controllers over from SCT, that wouldn't work either. You see, when we went to the DSR configuration in the centers, they wouldn't let us add contingency scopes due to the cost. So, we might have two or three scopes we could let them use, we couldn't give up any more... There would also be the issue of available radio frequencies in the building.

regards

Scott

[FWA NATCA]

Scott,

That's my point, the contingency plans may look great on paper, but in reality?

True you can't have a large group of approach controllers showing up at the door, this highlights the problem with consolidated facilities vs stand alone facilities.

When a consolidated facility experiences a major problem (ex. SCT and the fires) that facility adversely affects a larger number of airports, and a much larger area of airspace at the same time. Stand alone (not consolidated) facilities only affect the primary airport and whatever satelites airports that are within its' airspace.

If each en route facility had at least seven scopes available, and IF the approach frequencies could be utilized (highlights the need for multi channel transcivers), and IF the correct video (digital) maps could be displayed, and if you could get the approach controllers to the en route facility quickly, (a lot of IF's) then it would be feasible for controllers from the affected facility to work their approach traffic from within a en center.

I keep hearing that en route centers barely have the bodies to staff their own areas, so you guys certainly don't need to have a large area of terminal airspace dumped on you.

Mike
NATCA FWA

[av8boy]

Thanks for elaborating. I appreciate it.

Dave