Date: 201404
Local time of day: 1801-2400
Location: ZLA.ARTCC, CA
Aircraft: Any Unknown or Unlisted Aircraft Manufacturer
Airspace: Class A ZLA
ATC / advisory: Center ZLA
Reporter organization: Government
Reporter function: Enroute; Instructor
Reporter qualification: Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Human factors: Distraction; Human-Machine Interface; Troubleshooting; Confusion
Second reporter function: Other / Unknown
Anomaly: ATC Issue All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Detector: Person Air Traffic Control
Result: Air Traffic Control Provided Assistance; Air Traffic Control Separated Traffic
Contributing factors: ATC Equipment / Nav Facility / Buildings; Procedure
Primary problem: Procedure

Narrative: I was training a Developmental when the flight plans on the EDST went blue; then shortly afterward the data blocks on our scope were not responding to computer inputs. All track control was lost on every aircraft. I immediately reported the EDST issue to the FLM and surrounding sectors that were affected by the data loss. We were informed that we had lost ERAM and kept passing info to the surrounding sectors manually to prevent flight delays. We were relieved from the sector shortly after the ERAM failure.Recommendations would be to have physical copies of all important manuals so that the information is available right away. We did not have ATC Zero or other pertinent books available for the failure. Nothing can be looked up immediately on any of the computers on the control room floor. We were not ready and all veteran CPC's spent a lot of time training younger CPC's and developmentals on strip marking and how to pass flight plan information.


Second narrative: An intercom page went out asking all operational personnel to report to the RADAR floor. Upon entering the area I observed that all EDST monitors were displaying 'stale' information. All flight plans were highlighted in blue and were not updating. A flush of flight strips began printing and many controllers were delivering flight strips to the active sectors. ATC Zero had to be declared. SCT TRACON refused to take aircraft; due to LA Tower refusing to take aircraft without flight plans transferring. Aircraft were placed into holding or denied entry into ZLA airspace. After a time; Management stated for controllers to switch to EBUS. When the switch occurred many of the sectors had little or no RADAR information for the aircraft in their control. Controllers were then advised that DARC had failed and to return to the active ERAM channel until it was fixed. After EBUS was certified and brought up controllers were asked to switch to EBUS once again. Sectors became busy correlating targets with flight plan information. At approximately [Specified time] ERAM was usable and controllers returned to normal operations.A script or alert should be entered into the system to prevent certain flight plans from being able to circulate and overload the system. Something that changes the parameters for probing of OTP aircraft that is not a workaround; but a restricted way of flight plan filing that will not allow another catastrophe to occur.


Synopsis: Reporters describe situation where the radar fails at a Center and the problems associated with keeping traffic moving.