Narrative:

Aircraft X departs north; labeled as a fooot departure. I can see the aircraft still headed northbound instead of turning for the RNAV SID when the supervisor comes over to tell me the aircraft has flames in an engine. [Another sector] calls on the land line and says something like; they called me and asked what heading so I gave them a 260. I assumed that meant the aircraft had checked on with her by mistake and was turning west. I said I'd call local and stop departures. When I called local; I assumed they didn't know anything about the aircraft; asked them to stop departures and told them aircraft X was turning southbound; returning with flames in an engine. They said they knew and they needed to know what heading and frequency to put them on. I was shocked and asked them to confirm that they in fact still had the aircraft. They said yes and asked again what I wanted and to what frequency. I said something to the effect of turn him back towards the airport. When they responded with; we don't know what to do; I gave them a heading and told them to switch to me. I am angry and embarrassed to be part of a system that offers such poor service to an aircraft in distress.the fact that the tower does not know how to handle an [urgent situation] in their pattern to expedite them to the field is adding a tremendous and unnecessary risk to the safety of the aircraft. There is a reason we are to keep transmissions; instructions and frequency changes to a minimum. Departure should not be forced to get involved in these cases to get the aircraft back to the field. Tower needs training to understand the priorities when handling [aircraft] that need to return immediately.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: D01 Controller reported that while an air carrier was in distress; there was coordination confusion with Tower stating they did not know what to do.

Narrative: Aircraft X departs north; labeled as a FOOOT departure. I can see the aircraft still headed northbound instead of turning for the RNAV SID when the Supervisor comes over to tell me the aircraft has flames in an engine. [Another sector] calls on the land line and says something like; they called me and asked what heading so I gave them a 260. I assumed that meant the aircraft had checked on with her by mistake and was turning west. I said I'd call Local and stop departures. When I called Local; I assumed they didn't know anything about the aircraft; asked them to stop departures and told them Aircraft X was turning southbound; returning with flames in an engine. They said they knew and they needed to know what heading and frequency to put them on. I was shocked and asked them to confirm that they in fact still had the aircraft. They said yes and asked again what I wanted and to what frequency. I said something to the effect of turn him back towards the airport. When they responded with; we don't know what to do; I gave them a heading and told them to switch to me. I am angry and embarrassed to be part of a system that offers such poor service to an aircraft in distress.The fact that the Tower does not know how to handle an [urgent situation] in their pattern to expedite them to the field is adding a tremendous and unnecessary risk to the safety of the aircraft. There is a reason we are to keep transmissions; instructions and frequency changes to a minimum. Departure should not be forced to get involved in these cases to get the aircraft back to the field. Tower needs training to understand the priorities when handling [aircraft] that need to return immediately.

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.