Date: 201308
Local time of day: 0001-0600
Location: ZDV.ARTCC, CO
Aircraft: A319
Operator: Air Carrier
Operating under: Part 121
Flight plan: IFR
Flight phase: Cruise
Airspace: Class A ZDV
ATC / advisory: Center ZDV
Reporter organization: Government
Reporter function: Enroute
Reporter qualification: Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Human factors: Confusion; Distraction; Human-Machine Interface
Anomaly: ATC Issue All Types
Detector: Person Air Traffic Control
Result: General None Reported / Taken
Contributing factors: ATC Equipment / Nav Facility / Buildings; Human Factors
Primary problem: ATC Equipment / Nav Facility / Buildings

Narrative: An A319 departed Denver and asked for a short cut. I routed him to a short cut then decided that would likely put him into oncoming traffic so elected to wait. I previous routed the aircraft using URET and that worked fine but then URET completely dropped the flight plan out of the system. I highlighted it and wrote down what I could to save what I could and informed the Supervisor of the problem. I tried multiple times to reroute the aircraft and find some way to amend the flight plan and it kept saying it doesn't exist even though it still had an aircraft CID. I was able to send a data block within the Center but unable to send it to Kansas City Center. It took a few attempts for me to finally get a hold of them when I couldn't find a way to make the flight plan work. Asked another Controller and the Supervisor but nothing we could do worked. Called both Kansas City sector Controllers however they had nothing on him either so I pointed him out as code only to the first sector and attempted to pass the flight plan onto the receiving Controller. That Controller said keep him coming however they were to busy to take a flight plan. My Supervisor continued to keep trying to create a new flight plan for the aircraft but it wouldn't work for him and he tried calling them a few times and I was told to keep the aircraft on my frequency but let him keep flying and when the receiving Controller has time we could pass the flight plan. Another CPC Controller attempted to pass the flight plan later and I was told the receiving Controller just had an attitude issue with us but I was still told not to ship the aircraft yet. I kept the aircraft but informed the pilot I may lose him on radio coverage soon and advised him his next frequency in the event of lost communications. About 2-3 minutes went by after that and then I was told to just ship the aircraft onto the receiving Controller as the aircraft was going to auto drop off our scope any minute and he's around 70 miles in their airspace by this time. I believe the issue may be programming issue or something to do with the fact that they amended the RNAV SIDS and when we previous route the aircraft it dropped all the flight information. I was fast enough to save some of it to pass it along however receiving facility apparently didn't have the time to deal with the situation and their Supervisor was unresponsive to any phone calls made as well.




Synopsis: ZDC Controller described a technical airspace incursion when URET equipment failed to permit routing changes and in the process dropped the data block preventing a handoff.