Date: 201402
Local time of day: 0001-0600
Location: ZMA.ARTCC, FL
Aircraft: B757-200
Operator: Air Carrier
Operating under: Part 121
Flight plan: IFR
Mission: Passenger
Flight phase: Descent
Airspace: Class A ZMA
ATC / advisory: Center ZMA
Reporter organization: Government
Reporter function: Enroute
Reporter qualification: Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Second reporter function: Enroute
Anomaly: Conflict Airborne Conflict; 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
Result: Air Traffic Control Issued New Clearance; Air Traffic Control Separated Traffic; Flight Crew Became Reoriented
Contributing factors: Airport; Airspace Structure; Environment - Non Weather Related; Weather
Primary problem: Ambiguous

Narrative: Flights were being diverted to Sector 26; to go to MIA on the west side. Due to volume they shut us off leaving Sector 40 with around 7 MIA landers that needed to be placed on hold. An air carrier was given a heading to fly to the holding fix. The pilot was unable to comply with the heading; he said it on the frequency and then on guard but when he said it on frequency I didn't hear it and I don't think anyone else heard it. He turned the opposite way to the holding fix and got together with company descending and going to the holding fix. Revise the way we train and practice for the Tracker Position. In at least 3 instances conflict alert was activated on the scope and between me; Tracker and D Side nobody saw the conflict until the conflict alert activated. I think that needs to be revised.


Second narrative: I was asked to track at Sector R40. When I arrived all MIA arrivals were going to Sector 26 with 15 miles in trail. Everything look OK; but the aircraft had to go just south of the weather to go to [Runway] 26...except for the first aircraft all the others were on vectors to get in line (15 in trail). After taking two airplanes Sector 26 called to say they could take no more and that we had to hold/keep our airplanes. The problem was that our airplanes were 'trapped' south of the weather.Sector R40 is a very complex and busy sector on a normal sunny day. When you add weather and deviations you need to have a Tracker sooner. Also flow control should have kept a watch on Sector 26 and I think they should have divided our traffic (normally busy enough for one sector) into R26 and R1. Two different areas; it is very hard to execute a plan from flow control around weather and then when you are in the weather to say 'go back and hold in your airspace' just because of saturation. I can see emergency or equipment issues but saturation you can see that coming; to not plan or come up with ideas on how to ameliorate it is troubling.Sector R40 every day [evening commute] is the most complex sector in ZMA. There should be procedures (flow) to mitigate problems with weather get every sector who feeds R40 to provide spacing; get Havana center to help with MIA arrivals and I have seen Supervisor reroute departures around R40 to help the controllers (its normally an arrival problem).


Synopsis: Two ZMA Controllers describe the workload during a heavy late afternoon MIA arrival period with weather.