Global Technology Outage Impacts Seattle – Flights Grounded, Hospitals Disrupted
The Fragility of a Digitized World: Global Technology Outage Disrupts Flights, Hospitals, and Small Businesses in Seattle
SEATTLE — A global technology outage caused by a faulty software update grounded flights, knocked media outlets offline, and disrupted hospitals, small businesses, and government offices on Friday, highlighting the fragility of a digitized world dependent on just a handful of providers.
The trouble with the update issued by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike affected customers running Microsoft Windows. It was not the result of hacking or a cyberattack, according to CrowdStrike, which apologized and said a fix was on the way.
Businesses and governments experienced hours-long disruptions and scrambled to deal with the fallout.
**Healthcare**
This glitch in technology affected major hospital systems in the Puget Sound Region, some suffering worse consequences than others.
Providence Swedish told KOMO News that their information technology (IT) teams first became aware of the problem around 9 p.m. Thursday night. They worked all night to restore key functionality in the Epic electronic health record that nurses, physicians, and other caregivers use to access patient records.
“Well, critical care is always in necessity and there was no worry that we wouldn’t be able to provide that critical care,” Providence Chief Information Officer B.J. Moore told KOMO.
Moore said they practice what they call downtime procedures every month; what they would do if there was an earthquake, cyberattack, or CrowdStrike outage like what happened Thursday night. By Friday morning, Moore said they had most all clinical operations going.
“Elective surgeries are being rescheduled and Moore said his IT teams will be working all weekend.
“I think the biggest issue that will have through the weekend you know there’s about 60,000 laptops and desktops that were impacted and so will be remediating those,” said Moore.
A Seattle Children’s Hospital spokesperson told KOMO News that most of their IT systems were down.
KOMO went to the hospital campus where we spotted a Children’s Hospital staff member, standing outside an entrance to one of its clinics, that was not open because of the outage.
“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,” that Children’s Hospital staff member said.
That Children’s Hospital spokesperson also told KOMO News they were calling patient families to reschedule appointments and surgeries.
A Valley Regional Medical spokesperson said the global outage forced them into a delayed start at one of their outpatient clinics and that one elective surgical patient chose to reschedule. Liz Nolan with Valley Regional Medical told KOMO News in an email that “the remainder of our departments and 53 clinics are up and operational.”
The outage also impacted technology systems at the University of Washington Medical Center and Harborview Medical Center, but spokesperson Susan Gregg said that all campuses were still fully operational.
MultiCare Health System was able to open all their Indigo urgent care clinics even though their computer systems were affected by the CrowdStrike outage.
“Our team members are working hard to minimize disruption to patient care and system operations, and we are bringing systems back up as quickly as possible,” Kevin M. Maloney, with MultiCare wrote in an email.
Virginia Mason Franciscan Health, also affected by the global IT outage, said “We continue to provide safe, high-quality care to our patients and thank everyone for their patience as our teams take immediate action to restore any impacted systems.”
Virginia Mason also said they were contacting patients directly if their appointments were affected.
“It’s unfortunate but it is what it is,” said RP, a man outside of the closed Social Security office in Shoreline. He said he hadn’t heard of the global outage until KOMO News told him about it. He was wondering why the Social Security Office was closed when he showed up.
“We took time of our out of our day for nothing and it’s disappointing. Everybody who is showing up today needs their documents ASAP or they need their money. They might have Social Security benefits, who knows. And they might be relying on these payments to pay their bills for all we know,” said RP.
Jordyan Young also didn’t know about the outage.
Young and RP said they drove about 30 minutes to get to the office only to find it closed.
“Yeah, I needed to get some documents printed out from them and also speak to my case manager about my Social Security case,” said Young.
The Social Security Administration made it clear that people could still call on the phone and go online to handle business. The office also announced Friday afternoon, that its local offices would be open on Monday.
**Western Washington airports**
At Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, travelers have been waiting in heavy lines all morning.
“A global IT outage is impacting systems for some airlines that fly from SEA,” the airport posted on X. “Travelers, please check with your airline for the latest flight information and give yourself extra time arriving to the airport.”
In a post on X, Paine Field in Everett said the “IT outage is affecting airline operations across the globe. Please check with @AlaskaAir for information regarding your flight. We request that you give yourself additional time for travel today as the airlines work to get you to your final destination.”
Alaska Airlines said via statement that “at this time, we continue to be able to dispatch flights.” Delta and United both said they were affected.
**Others**
The Washington State Department of Social and Health Services tweeted that local Social Security offices were closed to the public Friday “due to widespread IT outages due to the global Microsoft and CrowdStrike issues.”
Sound Transit said there has been no impact on light rail service and trains are running on schedule.
The King County Sheriff’s Office (KCSO) said it’s not “aware of any such outages at KCSO’s 911 Communications Center.”
Seattle Public Library said some of its systems, including e-books, were down from the outage but eventually went back up.
Thousands of flights were canceled and tens of thousands were delayed around the world — including at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport — leading to long lines in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Airlines lost access to check-in and booking services in the heart of the summer travel season.
Several local TV stations in the U.S. — including KOMO News — were prevented from airing the news early Friday, and some state and local governments reported problems at courts, motor vehicles departments, unemployment agencies, and other offices.
Affected hospitals had problems with appointment systems, forcing them to suspend patient visits and cancel some surgeries.
KOMO News’ 11 p.m. Thursday show could not be broadcast, and its Friday morning shows experienced some technical glitches.
The global outage left a significant impact on various sectors, serving as a stark reminder of the vulnerability of our interconnected digital world.