Travelers were in for a rude awakening when a global tech outage stopped all flights from several major U.S. airlines. The crazy timelapse below shows just how severe a problem this is.
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Over 12 hours, the number of planes in the sky came to a screeching halt. The global tech outage affected Delta, United, and also American Airlines among others. It caused a mass communication issue. The ground stop affected all flights no matter where they were going. More than 600 flights in and out of the U.S. were canceled, according to FlightAware.com.
"The FAA is closely monitoring a technical issue impacting IT systems at U.S. airlines," the FAA also posted on social media. "Several airlines have requested FAA assistance with ground stops until the issue is resolved."
The issue was caused by CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm. An issue with an update caused a mass global outage. It also affected international airlines as well as banking and also other services. American Airlines later said it has resolved the issue affecting its communications.
"Earlier this morning, a technical issue with a vendor impacted multiple carriers, including American. As of 5 a.m. ET, we have been able to safely re-establish our operation. We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience," American Airlines said in a statement to CNN.
Timelapse Shows Mass Global Tech Outage
However, t's unclear how long the ground-stop order will remain in place.
Crazy visual: 12-hour timelapse shows plane traffic over the US with the FAA grounding Delta, United, and American Airlines flights during this morning's outage pic.twitter.com/KRuL3HjZVf
— Morning Brew ?? (@MorningBrew) July 19, 2024
The CEO of CrowdStrike said the firm has fixed the issue.
"The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed," CrowdStrike's CEO said early Friday of the massive global tech outage. "CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by 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 cyberattack."
The CEO continued, "We refer customers to the support portal for the latest updates. And will continue to provide complete and continuous updates on our website. We further recommend organizations ensure they're communicating with CrowdStrike representatives through official channels. Our team is fully mobilized to ensure the security and stability of CrowdStrike customers."
