Narrative:

I had taken the radar position and there were several departures off of two airports. A BE40 checked in; I identified and turned on course and climbed to 8;000 ft. I continued to coordinate with center to have other departures pass behind the BE40 and climb above to ensure separation. I had 4 departures all going out the same gate. I was also working arrivals and over-flights at the time. The BE40 requested to climb to 10;000 ft. I issued the climb and then had my ad amend the flight plan to reflect this. The BE40 requested to be off frequency and would report back. I thought I remembered the BE40 checking back in and saw the ARTS flashing as though the neighboring approach had accepted the automated hand off from the auto-flash feature. I then shipped the BE40 to the neighboring approach. I continued to work other departures and begin working an arrival sequence into the airport. When the date tag left my airspace I dropped it to reduce clutter on the scope. About 15 minutes later the BE40 checked back in again on my frequency and I began looking for this aircraft and remembered that they were supposed to be on the neighboring approach and told check last frequency. Then; I re-issued the neighboring approach's frequency. Recommendation; improve my scan and fix the bugs in the auto-flash with our radar. The auto-flash doesn't always work and I guess this time it didn't; but due to my work load my attention was somewhere else and I did not realize that it had not worked.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: TRACON Controller described an airspace incursion with an adjacent Approach Control. Traffic failed to get handed off via automation; the aircraft in question was allowed to leave the frequency; and the reporter forgot about the traffic.

Narrative: I had taken the RADAR position and there were several departures off of two airports. A BE40 checked in; I identified and turned on course and climbed to 8;000 FT. I continued to coordinate with Center to have other departures pass behind the BE40 and climb above to ensure separation. I had 4 departures all going out the same gate. I was also working arrivals and over-flights at the time. The BE40 requested to climb to 10;000 FT. I issued the climb and then had my AD amend the flight plan to reflect this. The BE40 requested to be off frequency and would report back. I thought I remembered the BE40 checking back in and saw the ARTS flashing as though the neighboring Approach had accepted the automated hand off from the auto-flash feature. I then shipped the BE40 to the neighboring Approach. I continued to work other departures and begin working an arrival sequence into the airport. When the date tag left my airspace I dropped it to reduce clutter on the scope. About 15 minutes later the BE40 checked back in again on my frequency and I began looking for this aircraft and remembered that they were supposed to be on the neighboring Approach and told check last frequency. Then; I re-issued the neighboring Approach's frequency. Recommendation; improve my scan and fix the bugs in the auto-flash with our RADAR. The auto-flash doesn't always work and I guess this time it didn't; but due to my work load my attention was somewhere else and I did not realize that it had not worked.

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.