Narrative:

I was the supervisor in area a when this occurred. Although the sector involved was not particularly busy or complex; it is my opinion that the general atmosphere of the area could have been a distraction. Lax was east; which we don't see very often and there was displayed weather throughout the area. This had been ongoing all day. Not long before the R14 controller came to work; the R13 controller advised me that the socal arrivals sector had told him they would not accept any lax arrivals for 20 minutes due to some smo departures or arrivals. The area immediately had to issue holding instructions to 7 aircraft. I called tmu; they were not aware of our holding; but said they would call socal and get back to me. I won't get into the specifics of the rest of this situation; but needless to say the area got very busy; very quickly. I believe this situation created a high stress level in the area; in general; which may have had an impact on the R14 controller. I was up; monitoring the area when this happened. Unfortunately I was busy at the sectors that were holding aircraft; and not able to hear the R14 controller issue the climb clearance that caused this loss of separation. Recommendation; my only suggestion isn't specifically about the operation at R14; but more the area in general. I feel the stress level in the area would not have been as high if we had more notice of the holding; or if tmu had known in advance and could have started some flow with ZOA. In the past I have seen smo closed when lax is east. I don't know if they need to be closed; but I'm pretty sure this was not the best time to stop all of the lax traffic for smo.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: ZLA Controller described a loss of separation event during East flow operations at LAX when the Center was required to initiate holding for LAX because of SMO traffic; noting the lack of TMU actions as one causal factor.

Narrative: I was the supervisor in Area A when this occurred. Although the sector involved was not particularly busy or complex; it is my opinion that the general atmosphere of the area could have been a distraction. LAX was East; which we don't see very often and there was displayed weather throughout the area. This had been ongoing all day. Not long before the R14 controller came to work; the R13 controller advised me that the SoCal arrivals sector had told him they would not accept any LAX arrivals for 20 minutes due to some SMO departures or arrivals. The area immediately had to issue holding instructions to 7 aircraft. I called TMU; they were not aware of our holding; but said they would call SoCal and get back to me. I won't get into the specifics of the rest of this situation; but needless to say the area got very busy; very quickly. I believe this situation created a high stress level in the area; in general; which may have had an impact on the R14 controller. I was up; monitoring the area when this happened. Unfortunately I was busy at the sectors that were holding aircraft; and not able to hear the R14 controller issue the climb clearance that caused this loss of separation. Recommendation; my only suggestion isn't specifically about the operation at R14; but more the area in general. I feel the stress level in the area would not have been as high if we had more notice of the holding; or if TMU had known in advance and could have started some flow with ZOA. In the past I have seen SMO closed when LAX is East. I don't know if they need to be closed; but I'm pretty sure this was not the best time to stop all of the LAX traffic for SMO.

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.