ZFW controller described an unsafe condition situation during multiple diversions and flight plan ca...

Narrative:

The dfw area had been impacted by a line of thunderstorms all evening. Throughout the evening; tmu was responsible for initiating swap's and reroutes for the thunderstorms. There were over 70 diversions due to the airport closing; volume and other weather issues. Airline companies would call the traffic management unit and ask us to remove the flight plan on several flight plans so that they could re-file. The tmc working the NC1 position got a request to remove a flight plan and he asked me to remove it since my position is in front of the kvdt computer. The wrong flight plan was removed and the track disappeared from the mdm working air carrier X. The more times you have to communicate an instruction; the more chances there are of miscommunication; especially when complexity and volume are involved. If the airline's dispatch could remove the flight plan themselves; then that would cut out that chance of miscommunication.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: ZFW Controller described an unsafe condition situation during multiple diversions and flight plan cancellations due to severe weather impacts resulting in the inadvertent removal of active flight plan information and lost Data Blocks.

Narrative: The DFW area had been impacted by a line of thunderstorms all evening. Throughout the evening; TMU was responsible for initiating SWAP's and reroutes for the thunderstorms. There were over 70 diversions due to the airport closing; volume and other weather issues. Airline companies would call the Traffic Management Unit and ask us to remove the flight plan on several flight plans so that they could re-file. The TMC working the NC1 position got a request to remove a flight plan and he asked me to remove it since my position is in front of the KVDT computer. The wrong flight plan was removed and the track disappeared from the MDM working Air Carrier X. The more times you have to communicate an instruction; the more chances there are of miscommunication; especially when complexity and volume are involved. If the airline's Dispatch could remove the flight plan themselves; then that would cut out that chance of miscommunication.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of July 2013 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.

Attributes
ACN	1014685
Time
Date	201206
Local Time Of Day	0001-0600
Place
Locale Reference	DFW.Airport
State Reference	TX
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	B737 Undifferentiated or Other Model
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Climb
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	Traffic Management
Person 2
Function	Traffic Management
Events
Anomaly	ATC Issue All Types Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy

ZFW controller described an unsafe condition situation during multiple diversions and flight plan cancellations due to severe weather impacts resulting in the inadvertent removal of active flight plan information and lost data blocks.