Narrative:

A CRJ2 was assigned FL230 230; DEBAR3 to cvg. Eram auto flashed the CRJ2 about 15 miles north of fwa; (40-ish miles from the ZAU-ZID boundary). The ZAU/ZID LOA requires cvg arrivals to be at or above FL210. My d-side trainee called mie sector and coordinated that the CRJ2 would descend when clear of traffic. That traffic was an erj; WATSN1 to ord at FL220; head on with the CRJ2. We had just received communications from mie; the erj was still in mie's airspace; and the CRJ2 was still well inside our airspace; still on our frequency. Mie amended the data block; without control; still in our airspace; to show an altitude of FL210. The CRJ2 was at FL230; with opposite direction traffic at 12 o'clock and 10 miles at FL220. The mie controller could have used a local interim altitude; but it is never appropriate to amend a data block in another controller's airspace; where you do not have control and are not communicating with the aircraft. I believe that would violate the requirement that the data block reflect what the aircraft is doing. I believe both facilities should fall back to host until clarification about proper data block coordination is completed and ZID controllers retrained on eram and 4th line usage.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: ZAU Controller described an unsafe event when an adjacent Controller amended data block information not under hiS control.

Narrative: A CRJ2 was assigned FL230 230; DEBAR3 to CVG. ERAM auto flashed the CRJ2 about 15 miles north of FWA; (40-ish miles from the ZAU-ZID boundary). The ZAU/ZID LOA requires CVG arrivals to be at or above FL210. My D-Side trainee called MIE sector and coordinated that the CRJ2 would descend when clear of traffic. That traffic was an ERJ; WATSN1 to ORD at FL220; head on with the CRJ2. We had just received communications from MIE; the ERJ was still in MIE's airspace; and the CRJ2 was still well inside our airspace; still on our frequency. MIE amended the data block; without control; still in our airspace; to show an altitude of FL210. The CRJ2 was at FL230; with opposite direction traffic at 12 o'clock and 10 miles at FL220. The MIE Controller could have used a local interim altitude; but it is never appropriate to amend a data block in another Controller's airspace; where you do not have control and are not communicating with the aircraft. I believe that would violate the requirement that the data block reflect what the aircraft is doing. I believe both facilities should fall back to HOST until clarification about proper data block coordination is completed and ZID controllers retrained on ERAM and 4th line usage.

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.