Massive computer outage grounds flights, shuts down businesses globally

SEATAC, Wash. — A widespread computer outage is disrupting operations for airports, airlines, banks, businesses, hospitals, and government agencies worldwide.

It’s linked to one of our region’s largest tech companies -- Microsoft. It all involves an issue that blocked access to Microsoft 365 apps and services, The Associated Press reported.

KIRO 7 reached out to a Microsoft spokesperson, who said, “Earlier today, a CrowdStrike update was responsible for bringing down a number of IT systems globally. We are actively supporting customers to assist in their recovery.”

According to the spokesperson, the company does not believe this outage is related to the July 18 Azure outage that impacted a subset of Azure customers, and that issue has fully recovered.

THE HIGHLIGHTS

• CrowdStrike update impacting Windows systems caused outage.
• Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted.
• Not a security incident or cyber attack.
• Airlines, hospital systems, banks, and emergency operations all feeling the effects.
• Issues are being resolved and impacted systems are recovering, CrowdStrike CEO says.

Problems are continuing hours after the technology company said it was gradually fixing an issue affecting access to Microsoft 365 apps and services.

Airlines in the United States, Europe, Australia, and India were reporting problems, with some flights grounded. Retail outlets, banks, railway companies, and hospitals in several parts of the world were also affected by what appeared to be an unprecedented internet disruption.

All the disruptions at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, and around the region and world, link back to the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.

CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said that it was a “defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyber attack.”

The FAA said the airlines United, American, Delta, and Allegiant had all been grounded. Frontier was also affected. We have since heard that American and Frontier have restored their operations and that Delta and United are restarting their operations.

Sea-Tac Airport did confirm that they are experiencing issues with the Fly SEA app, along with flight and baggage information on terminal screens.

As of 5:20 a.m., there were 35 cancellations and 33 delays into or out of Sea-Tac, but by 7:30 a.m., delays had risen to 65 and cancellations to 45, according to FlightAware.

Social media videos from Sea-Tac show dozens of people stranded at the gates, and the US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg posted on social media that they are monitoring the flight cancellation and delay issue.

Also on social media, “Microsoft 365 status” -- an arm of its customer service group -- posted that its outages started around 6 a.m. Eastern time.

The FAA said it made the decision along with consultation from the airlines to ground some of them -- United, Allegiant, Delta, and American due to communication issues.

“All of a sudden, the pilot came over and said there’s been an issue with the network, they had to reboot, and it could be a short delay then he came back on 10 minutes later and he said the delay was going to be lengthier than expected,” said passenger Scott Sanders, who was stuck at Sea-Tac Airport Thursday night. “We thought it was our own plane and that was it, and then we realized this was more than that and started seeing on our devices that this was a national issue.”

Some local hospitals were affected, including Seattle Children’s and UW Medicine.

A statement from a Seattle Children’s spokesperson said, in part:

“Our urgent care centers remain open but all our clinics, including Odessa Brown Children’s Clinic, regional clinics, and ambulatory clinics, are closed on Friday, July 19. We are contacting patients and families to reschedule certain appointments and surgeries.”

UW Medicine said it had been affected but was now fully operational.

President briefed

Update 6:47 a.m. July 19: President Joe Bien has been briefed on the outage, The New York Times reported. Several governmental cybersecurity experts are already meeting at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado. Administration officials are “in touch with CrowdStrike and impacted entities. His team is engaged across the interagency to get sector-by-sector updates throughout the day and is standing by to provide assistance as needed.”

The FAA is keeping a close eye on the impacts of the outage.

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