N90 controller described a conflict event when ewr departure traffic was restricted from entering ZN...

Narrative:

I had taken radar on air carrier X. He was departing ewr and being radar vectored to intercept the COL350 radial. Air carrier X should have been climbing to 6;000. ZNY (dixie sector) had just called to say that I had to hold all of their aircraft. I was vectoring aircraft around weather; other aircraft; and in the confines of the south airspace. Someone in lga sector yelled out 'what are you doing with air carrier X?' I immediately looked up to see that he was climbing out of 6;500; he was head on with a lga arrival. The arrival was heading westbound; not normal; because lga tower was in the middle of switching runways. I didn't think that I was talking with air carrier X; but I called out to him anyway. I gave him instructions to descend; he never responded. I continued to reach out to air carrier X and issued a traffic alert but there was no response. The ewr departure controller told him to descend to 6;000; and the lga controller had the lga arrival climb to 8;000. I think that this happened because of several contributing factors: lga runway change; ZNY closing the door on the departures; weather and not catching the read backs. I don't think that there is one thing that can be done that would have changed this situation. I think it was many factors that just multiplied the severity of this scenario.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: N90 Controller described a conflict event when EWR departure traffic was restricted from entering ZNY's airspace; a runway change was being conducted at LGA; weather was forcing deviations and a read back was missed.

Narrative: I had taken RADAR on Air Carrier X. He was departing EWR and being RADAR vectored to intercept the COL350 radial. Air Carrier X should have been climbing to 6;000. ZNY (DIXIE Sector) had just called to say that I had to hold all of their aircraft. I was vectoring aircraft around weather; other aircraft; and in the confines of the south airspace. Someone in LGA sector yelled out 'What are you doing with Air Carrier X?' I immediately looked up to see that he was climbing out of 6;500; he was head on with a LGA arrival. The arrival was heading westbound; not normal; because LGA Tower was in the middle of switching runways. I didn't think that I was talking with Air Carrier X; but I called out to him anyway. I gave him instructions to descend; he never responded. I continued to reach out to Air Carrier X and issued a Traffic Alert but there was no response. The EWR Departure Controller told him to descend to 6;000; and the LGA Controller had the LGA Arrival climb to 8;000. I think that this happened because of several contributing factors: LGA runway change; ZNY closing the door on the departures; weather and not catching the read backs. I don't think that there is one thing that can be done that would have changed this situation. I think it was many factors that just multiplied the severity of this scenario.

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.

Attributes
ACN	899696
Time
Date	201007
Local Time Of Day	1801-2400
Place
Locale Reference	N90.TRACON
State Reference	NY
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	EMB ERJ 145 ER&LR
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Initial Climb
Route In Use	Vectors
Flight Plan	IFR
Aircraft 2
Make Model Name	EMB ERJ 145 ER&LR
Flight Phase	Initial Approach
Route In Use	Vectors
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	Departure
Qualification	Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Person 2
Function	Approach Supervisor / CIC
Events
Anomaly	ATC Issue All Types Conflict Airborne Conflict Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy

N90 controller described a conflict event when ewr departure traffic was restricted from entering ZNY's airspace; a runway change was being conducted at lga; weather was forcing deviations and a read back was missed.