Narrative:

Air carrier X was descended to 6;000 ft on the BOJID1 arrival landing phl while military aircraft Y was on a converging course on V29 south bound at 6;000. I was only talking to air carrier X at the time because the yardley sector pointed out military aircraft Y at 6;000. The point out was made as I was receiving a briefing for the position. Normally I will call radar contact on the V29 traffic instead of accepting the point out; but this time I did not. Both aircraft responded to a TCAS resolution with air carrier X descending to 5;000 and military aircraft Y climbing to 7;000 before returning to level flight at 6;000. Closest proximity was 2.08 miles and 200 ft. Victor 29 traffic routinely comes in from abe; south bound at 6;000 ft while phl traffic is trying to descend for the airport. Abe hands off traffic to the phl low sector (yardley ard) and ard usually points out the traffic to north arrival (na) before handing off to north departure (nd). There is only about a 5-mile exposure in north arrivals airspace at 6;000 before entering north departures airspace. If ard hands off to na and then na hands off to nd it becomes work intensive and a lot of frequency changes for the aircraft. Unfortunately this is also a built in trap that has nabbed quite a few of us in recent years. A solution would be to push the south bound V29 traffic to 5;000 from abe so that ard would have to work them without a point out to na. Additionally the north bound traffic would have to be pushed to 4;000 to avoid a conflict.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: PHL TRACON Controller experienced loss of separation event at 6000 FT when electing to accept a point out in lieu of a hand off; varying from their standard operating practice of always taking a hand off.

Narrative: Air Carrier X was descended to 6;000 FT on the BOJID1 arrival landing PHL while Military Aircraft Y was on a converging course on V29 south bound at 6;000. I was only talking to Air Carrier X at the time because the Yardley sector pointed out Military Aircraft Y at 6;000. The point out was made as I was receiving a briefing for the position. Normally I will call RADAR contact on the V29 traffic instead of accepting the point out; but this time I did not. Both aircraft responded to a TCAS Resolution with Air Carrier X descending to 5;000 and Military Aircraft Y climbing to 7;000 before returning to level flight at 6;000. Closest proximity was 2.08 miles and 200 FT. Victor 29 traffic routinely comes in from ABE; South bound at 6;000 FT while PHL traffic is trying to descend for the airport. ABE hands off traffic to the PHL low sector (Yardley ARD) and ARD usually points out the traffic to North Arrival (NA) before handing off to North Departure (ND). There is only about a 5-mile exposure in North Arrivals airspace at 6;000 before entering North Departures airspace. If ARD hands off to NA and then NA hands off to ND it becomes work intensive and a lot of frequency changes for the aircraft. Unfortunately this is also a built in trap that has nabbed quite a few of us in recent years. A solution would be to push the South bound V29 traffic to 5;000 from ABE so that ARD would have to work them without a point out to NA. Additionally the North bound traffic would have to be pushed to 4;000 to avoid a conflict.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 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.