Narrative:

Anchorage advertising landing runway 15 during an elmendorf recovery. In an attempt to alleviate final from having to sequence a slow aircraft with the faster airliners; I initiated a call to anchorage tower to have them approve aircraft X to land runway 25L. During the phone call; I thought I had heard 'approved' and began to sequence aircraft X to arrive runway 25L. In fact; the tower had stated something to the effect of 'keep him in the runway 15 flow'. Multiple voices were broadcasting and speaking within the room simultaneously which played a role in my confusion. I imposed the appropriate; yet misguided; restrictions onto the pilot and frequency changed him to the tower. When the pilot checked in with the tower they became aware of the miscommunication and called to correct me. I received the aircraft back onto my frequency per my request and became concerned about a heavy arrival to 15 that would have been a direct conflict with aircraft X in the event of a missed approach. Aircraft X was just inside the border of an MVA at 022 and still descending out of 019. I issued a climb in conjunction with a left turn away from terrain. The vector was; knowingly and improperly; issued beneath the MVA toward a direction of safety in an effort to maintain as much space from the heavy as I could recover. The aircraft lagged through their descent and showed a minimum altitude of 016 and 0.25 NM inside the MVA boundary at its most egregious point. The MVA that the aircraft was vectored toward was 016. At the time I made my decision; I felt that any hesitation or delay could have resulted in the development of a much more serious and potentially deadly situation. During post-incident review on falcon; I maintain my feeling that the turn was issued not a moment too soon. I was operating in recovery mode in order to reacquire a safe operating environment; however; I am aware that the turn was in violation of rules which govern minimum vectoring altitudes. My initial coordination was performed poorly. The quality of the voice which I heard was not nearly sufficient enough to constitute the assumption of approval. I should have made every effort to have the coordination clarified. Despite the limitation of my working environment; there was one more tool I could have employed to resolve all of this much more simply. Our automation is top-notch; the best I've ever seen; and I could have very easily employed scratch pad information in conjunction with an automated hand off to the tower in order to clarify the verbal coordination. From now on; despite any verbal coordination I may perform... I will make every effort to ensure that the scratch pad information is up-to-date and handed off to the tower so that there can be no future miscommunication.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Anchorage TRACON controller reported improperly coordinated sequencing of an aircraft contributed to the aircraft entering into a higher MVA.

Narrative: Anchorage advertising landing RWY 15 during an Elmendorf recovery. In an attempt to alleviate final from having to sequence a slow aircraft with the faster airliners; I initiated a call to Anchorage Tower to have them approve Aircraft X to land RWY 25L. During the phone call; I thought I had heard 'approved' and began to sequence Aircraft X to arrive RWY 25L. In fact; the tower had stated something to the effect of 'keep him in the RWY 15 flow'. Multiple voices were broadcasting and speaking within the room simultaneously which played a role in my confusion. I imposed the appropriate; yet misguided; restrictions onto the pilot and frequency changed him to the tower. When the pilot checked in with the tower they became aware of the miscommunication and called to correct me. I received the aircraft back onto my frequency per my request and became concerned about a Heavy arrival to 15 that would have been a direct conflict with Aircraft X in the event of a missed approach. Aircraft X was just inside the border of an MVA at 022 and still descending out of 019. I issued a climb in conjunction with a left turn away from terrain. The vector was; knowingly and improperly; issued beneath the MVA toward a direction of safety in an effort to maintain as much space from the Heavy as I could recover. The aircraft lagged through their descent and showed a minimum altitude of 016 and 0.25 NM inside the MVA boundary at its most egregious point. The MVA that the aircraft was vectored toward was 016. At the time I made my decision; I felt that any hesitation or delay could have resulted in the development of a much more serious and potentially deadly situation. During post-incident review on FALCON; I maintain my feeling that the turn was issued not a moment too soon. I was operating in recovery mode in order to reacquire a safe operating environment; however; I am aware that the turn was in violation of rules which govern Minimum Vectoring Altitudes. My initial coordination was performed poorly. The quality of the voice which I heard was not nearly sufficient enough to constitute the assumption of approval. I should have made every effort to have the coordination clarified. Despite the limitation of my working environment; there was one more tool I could have employed to resolve all of this much more simply. Our automation is top-notch; the best I've ever seen; and I could have very easily employed scratch pad information in conjunction with an automated hand off to the tower in order to clarify the verbal coordination. From now on; despite any verbal coordination I may perform... I will make every effort to ensure that the scratch pad information is up-to-date and handed off to the tower so that there can be no future miscommunication.

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.