Narrative:

I was working R60 with a d-side. There was weather along the departure route for iad/dca/bwi; and the departure sector; fluky; had been given an in trail restriction of 15 miles; as one; for iad and dca departures. When I first arrived; departure was handing me off two departures with less than 5 miles in trail. I called the controller to verify they were aware of the restriction and approved vertical separation for those two aircraft. Several minutes later; there was a large departure push where fluky tried to hand off several aircraft; and many of these were not in compliance with the in trail restriction. Many aircraft were deviating; had been assigned different altitudes than what was displayed in the data block (as they did not even have the required lateral separation) and assigned speeds; none of which was coordinated. In addition; there was an arrival to ofp (which needed to be descended almost immediately on contact) trapped on top of the departures that should have been vectored or assigned routing to enter another sector. This situation was particularly dangerous because the adjacent airspace was working a high volume of descending arrival traffic opposite of the flight path that the departures were deviating on; and the departures required numerous point outs and coordination with several other sectors. This coordination created an unmanageable workload even with a D side to aid in coordination. The sector became overloaded and we shut off departures. However; many aircraft still entered the airspace even though we had not accepted the handoffs. As the aircraft started to deviate further to the east; fluky started to hand them off to sector 20. Many of these aircraft still passed through our airspace and sector 20's without coordination. There was confusion over what frequency these aircraft had been given by fluky and we were unable to communicate with many of them.there were in trail restrictions in place before most of these aircraft even departed that was not complied with. Regardless of why the departure sector was unable to comply with these restrictions; traffic management needs to have procedures to ensure that these restrictions are held; especially when the aircraft are still on the ground and there is no reason to overload sectors with airplanes that could have been waiting there safely.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Two ZDC Controllers reported bad weather where aircraft had to deviate and weather was restricting movement. Controllers attempted to get use of Special Use Airspace but had to coordinate on a plane by plane basis which added to the workload. Controllers wanted the Front Line Manager and Traffic Management Unit (TMU) to ensure restrictions were being held and that aircraft should have been held on the ground instead of becoming airborne adding to their traffic load. Controller wanted to review this session with TMU; and a safety council. Traffic was inundating the controller workforce and due to weather they were limited in what they could do.

Narrative: I was working R60 with a D-Side. There was weather along the departure route for IAD/DCA/BWI; and the departure sector; FLUKY; had been given an in trail restriction of 15 miles; as one; for IAD and DCA departures. When I first arrived; departure was handing me off two departures with less than 5 miles in trail. I called the controller to verify they were aware of the restriction and approved vertical separation for those two aircraft. Several minutes later; there was a large departure push where FLUKY tried to hand off several aircraft; and many of these were not in compliance with the in trail restriction. Many aircraft were deviating; had been assigned different altitudes than what was displayed in the data block (as they did not even have the required lateral separation) and assigned speeds; none of which was coordinated. In addition; there was an arrival to OFP (which needed to be descended almost immediately on contact) trapped on top of the departures that should have been vectored or assigned routing to enter another sector. This situation was particularly dangerous because the adjacent airspace was working a high volume of descending arrival traffic opposite of the flight path that the departures were deviating on; and the departures required numerous point outs and coordination with several other sectors. This coordination created an unmanageable workload even with a D side to aid in coordination. The sector became overloaded and we shut off departures. However; many aircraft still entered the airspace even though we had not accepted the handoffs. As the aircraft started to deviate further to the east; FLUKY started to hand them off to sector 20. Many of these aircraft still passed through our airspace and sector 20's without coordination. There was confusion over what frequency these aircraft had been given by FLUKY and we were unable to communicate with many of them.There were in trail restrictions in place before most of these aircraft even departed that was not complied with. Regardless of why the departure sector was unable to comply with these restrictions; traffic management needs to have procedures to ensure that these restrictions are held; especially when the aircraft are still on the ground and there is no reason to overload sectors with airplanes that could have been waiting there safely.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site 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.