Narrative:

When I arrived at work that day I started on position R91/65. In the briefing I asked about a piece of paper that was sitting by the keyboard about a hibal launch from nyl. I was told by the controller I was relieving that they didn't understand the notice so they ignored it. So I turned to the supervisor and asked for more information about the hibal; such as altitude; direction of flight; size of the payload; size of the balloon; etc. He told me that all the information that he had was in front of me. I was quite animate about why we didn't have any other information and I was told because they didn't have any other information and when questioned neither did nyl approach. Nyl is very close to the phx arrival corridor by bza and also we have a lot of aircraft that travel on J2/J18 in and out of southern california. So when I pushed further I was told that I was getting excited over nothing and according to the weather people 'thousands of these kinds of balloons launch every day and we only know or hear about 1% of those' and I was told to 'chill out' and not worry about it; I was quite angry. I was told not to care or worry about something that could possibly come in close proximity to an airplane? Doesn't that seem unsafe to you? Recommendation; any hibal launch should have specific information attached to it especially if it will come in close proximity to airplanes. That way it can be tracked accordingly.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Enroute Controller voiced concern regarding the HIBAL weather balloon release procedure claiming not enough information is provided to the controllers with reference to the launches.

Narrative: When I arrived at work that day I started on position R91/65. In the briefing I asked about a piece of paper that was sitting by the keyboard about a HIBAL launch from NYL. I was told by the Controller I was relieving that they didn't understand the notice so they ignored it. So I turned to the Supervisor and asked for more information about the HIBAL; such as altitude; direction of flight; size of the payload; size of the balloon; etc. He told me that all the information that he had was in front of me. I was quite animate about why we didn't have any other information and I was told because they didn't have any other information and when questioned neither did NYL approach. NYL is very close to the PHX arrival corridor by BZA and also we have a lot of aircraft that travel on J2/J18 in and out of Southern California. So when I pushed further I was told that I was getting excited over nothing and according to the weather people 'thousands of these kinds of balloons launch every day and we only know or hear about 1% of those' and I was told to 'Chill Out' and not worry about it; I was quite angry. I was told not to care or worry about something that could possibly come in close proximity to an airplane? Doesn't that seem unsafe to you? Recommendation; any HIBAL launch should have specific information attached to it especially if it will come in close proximity to airplanes. That way it can be tracked accordingly.

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.