Date: 201407
Local time of day: 0001-0600
Location: ZAB.ARTCC, NM
Aircraft: Any Unknown or Unlisted Aircraft Manufacturer
Flight plan: IFR
Flight phase: Initial Climb
Airspace: Class A ZAB
ATC / advisory: Center ZAB
Reporter organization: Government
Reporter function: Enroute
Reporter qualification: Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Human factors: Communication Breakdown; Distraction; Situational Awareness; Workload
Anomaly: Airspace Violation All Types; Deviation - Track / Heading All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence
Detector: Person Air Traffic Control
When detected: In-flight
Contributing factors: Airspace Structure; Procedure
Primary problem: Procedure

Narrative: Multiple events occurred and the entire situation should be reviewed. When coming into work I was asked to D-Side on Sector 42/49. There was weather causing aircraft to deviate on departure and arrival. R2307 was active with aircraft FL230 and below. Gladden was active FL330 and below blocking additional airspace that could have been used to accommodate deviating aircraft. I asked the Supervisor if we could get Gladden back since arrivals were deviating south around weather and departures were deviating even further north and getting close to Gladden. I was informed by controllers in the room that earlier the OMIC had insisted that Gladden be approved in spite of controller recommendations to the contrary. Additionally the Supervisor went to ask the OMIC about getting Gladden back and the OMIC chose not to do so. Minutes later a slow climbing aircraft insisted that they could only deviate further north for weather and would not accept a south deviation. I called LUF to see if we could take immediate action to cap Gladden to allow the aircraft to deviate or at least keep the using [airspace] below the aircraft. The Controller at LUF put me on with the LUF Supervisor who issued a control instruction to have the aircraft fly heading 030 which put the aircraft into the Gladden airspace. The aircraft violated Gladden on its weather deviation which was exacerbated by the control instruction from LUF. None of that would have happened if management had taken steps to insure safety beyond putting everything on the shoulder of the Controller. Because LUF was unable to release any portion of Gladden I called P50 and stopped all the BXK departures and had them moved south over GBN to prevent additional aircraft violating Gladden. Almost immediately after we moved the departures over GBN aircraft that had been deviating south of the weather but remaining north of R2307 began to deviate much further south preventing a timely descent. Several aircraft deviated so far south that they almost violated R2301E and were in conflict with the aircraft which were now departing PHX over GBN. I called L60 and told them to hold all aircraft until advised to allow the R-Side to manage the already overloaded situation. I was informed by management that there were no additional P50 departures however the sector continued to get handoffs from P50 over GBN. At one point there were several aircraft in the vicinity of GBN all assigned FL190 and I had to prompt the R-Side to take immediate action which prevented timely point outs to NYL and perhaps other sectors that I am unaware of. While I don't believe that any aircraft had less than 5 [miles] or 1 [thousand feet] the situation was unsafe because management failed to mitigate risk in this sector despite controller input to make changes and take timely action. This is not uncommon in our Center. We get weather and have complex military airspace active on a regular basis. There is much pressure from upper management to release the airspace and Front Line Management fails to stand up and declare it unsafe even if the controller objects. TMU seems to take no steps to mitigate our risk other than telling us that they are. In this scenario we should have never released Gladden. Additionally instead of having a stream of arrivals from L60 and L31 all PHX arrivals should have been routed on J2 and spaced maybe 15 [miles in trail] to make the situation manageable. The OMIC and military should have collaborated to recover some of R3207 and in a perfect world R2301E. Basically if someone beyond the controller cares enough to stand up and take action when we have significant weather; recover some airspace or reroute aircraft we can have a safer NAS.




Synopsis: ZAB Controller describes situation where weather is causing deviations to a very large amount of traffic. Controller asks management to recall a restricted airspace due to the deviations; but is met with resistance. Aircraft violates restricted area.